JASPER  DOUTHIT'S 
STORY 


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HENRY  M.  DUNLAP 
SAVOY,  ILLINOIS 

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LIBRARY  OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
AT  URBANA-CHAMPAICN 


.  - 


JASPER 

DOUTHIT'S 

STORY 

The  Autobiography  of  a  Pioneer 


BOSTON 

AMERICAN  UNITARIAN  ASSOCIATION 

25  BEACON  STREET 


A  FFECTIONATELY  inscribed  to  rel- 
JLjL.  atives  and  friends,  on  earth  and 
in  heaven,  who  have  been  faithful  co- 
workers  in  the  mission  of  my  life;  most 
of  all  to  her  who  was  my  constant  com- 
panion, chief  inspiration,  oracle  and 
guide  for  nearly  fifty  years,  and  to  our 
four  children,  each  of  whom,  from  child- 
hood to  this  day,  lias  had  a  mind  and 
heart  to  lend  a  hand. 


FOREWORD 

little  book  is  the  simple  story  of  the 
J-  ministry  of  my  dear  brother  Jasper  through 
many  years  to  his  own  people  in  his  own  home 
land.  It  is  what  a  little  maid  in  a  far  away  old 
time  used  to  ask  for,  —  "a  truly  story ' '  to  the 
last  line,  and  well  I  can  testify  that  the  half  has 
not  been  told.  But  what  he  tells  me  goes  right 
to  the  heart,  as  it  will  go  to  the  hearts  of  the 
thousands  who  will  read  it,  of  our  faith  and 
name,  and  the  "Lend  a  Hand  Society,"  of  which 
we  are  all  members  in  the  wider  interpretation 
of  the  happy  thought  that  "joins  hands  and 
leaves  nobody  out." 


INTRODUCTION 

story  of  Jasper  L.  Douthit,  as  told  by 
-*•  himself  in  these  pages,  is  the  story  of  a 
hard  life,  spent  amid  surroundings  always  sim- 
ple, sometimes  rude  and  rough,  but  it  is  the 
story  of  a  life  singularly  devoted  to  high 
things,  and  such  a  story  can  never  be  wholly 
sad.  This  life  was  shot  through  and  through 
with  consecration,  with  devoutness,  with  an  al- 
truistic passion  to  uplift  the  particular  section 
of  God's  earth  into  which  he  was  born,  and  to 
serve  the  people  to  whom  he  was  related.  The 
story  is  necessarily  inadequately  told,  for  no 
man  can  justly  estimate  his  own  life  or  properly 
tell  his  own  story,  least  of  all  a  man  of  Mr. 
Douthit's  intense  temperament,  whose  seriousness 
has  never  been  sufficiently  relieved  by  a  sense  of 
humor  or  freedom  from  care  and  the  occasional 
recoil  from  labor  which  gives  the  imagination  a 
chance  to  put  in  its  shadings  or  to  cushion  the 
ragged  rocks  with  moss  and  decorate  the  beet- 
ling cliffs  with  vines  and  flowers. 


INTRODUCTION 


We  have  here  a  photograph  and  not  a  paint- 
ing. Here  is  a  realism  that  may  mar  the  lit- 
erary attractiveness  of  the  picture,  but  which 
greatly  enhances  its  value  as  the  material  out  of 
which  true  history  must  eventually  be  written. 
Mr.  Douthit  appears  in  these  pages  as  a 
chronicler  rather  than  as  an  historian.  He  has 
given  us  a  collection  of  facts  which,  superficially 
studied,  may  seem  trifling  and  sometimes  grue- 
some, but  deeper  study  will  disclose  their  value 
as  it  will  reveal  high  joys  and  noble  convictions. 

We  have  here  a  cross-section  of  a  pioneer  life 
whose  part  in  the  development  of  the  Mississippi 
valley  has  never  been  adequately  stated.  The 
streams  of  immigration  from  over  New  England 
and  over  the  sea  —  English,  Celtic,  Scandina- 
vian, German,  French,  etc.  —  have  been  studied 
with  such  interest  and  with  the  help  of  such 
abundant  material  as  to  overshadow  that  other 
stream  which  poured  out  of  Virginia  and  the 
Carolinas  through  Tennessee  and  Kentucky  into 
southern  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois  and  Missouri. 
Douthit,  the  people  to  whom  he  belongs,  and  the 
counties  to  whose  service  he  has  given  his  life, 
belong  to  this  stream.  He  is  necessarily  a 
"  mountain  man."  In  temper,  origin  and  en- 
vironment as  well  as  in  appearance,  he  belongs 


INTRODUCTION 


to  the  tribe  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  The  hard 
drinking,  the  fiery  theology,  the  vehement  prej- 
udices, the  bitter  quarrels,  the  deadly  feuds  and 
withal,  the  robust  intellects  and  stalwart  con- 
sciences which  figure  in  this  tale  find  their  coun- 
terpart and  explanation  in  the  south  and  the 
southeastward. 

Mr.  Douthit  was  a  "  home  missionary,"  but 
he  expounded  a  foreign  gospel.  "  About  the 
last  place  on  earth  one  would  expect  to  find  or 
try  to  plant  a  Unitarian  church,"  was  the 
common  remark  of  his  friends.  Unitarianism 
was  never  put  to  a  severer  test  than  when  Jas- 
per Douthit  sought  with  it  to  ameliorate  the 
severities  and  remove  the  illiteracy  and  iniquities 
of  southern  Illinois  in  the  sixties  and  the  seven- 
ties. Channing's  interpretation  of  the  gospel  in 
terms  of  gentleness  and  love,  Theodore  Parker's 
interpretation  of  Christianity  in  terms  of  justice 
and  freedom  to  the  slave,  and  Emerson's  render- 
ing of  the  universe  in  terms  of  order,  progress 
and  peace,  were  by  Douthit  set  over  against  Cal- 
vinism in  its  most  dogmatic  form,  the  whiskey 
jug  with  its  fiery  contents,  and  the  shot  gun  with 
its  maximum  of  civic  potency  and  political  prow- 
ess, and  the  sequel  shows  that  these  higher  inter- 
pretations of  religion  were  tried  and  not  found 


INTRODUCTION 


wanting.  This  story  of  the  missionary  work 
done  by  Jasper  Douthit  in  Shelby  county,  Illi- 
nois, is  a  triumphant  justification  of  the  claim 
that  the  gospel  of  love  is  more  than  a  match  for 
the  gospel  of  hate,  and  that  a  reasonable  religion 
is  better  adapted  to  the  needs  of  all  classes  and 
conditions  of  men  than  the  religion  of  dogma- 
tism and  the  unreasoning  faith  of  bigotry. 

Notwithstanding  Mr.  Douthit's  attempt  to 
tell  the  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but 
the  truth  about  his  mission,  to  anyone  conver- 
sant with  the  facts  in  the  case  these  pages  give 
an  inadequate  account  of  the  work  accomplished 
by  this  tireless  missionary  and  his  gentle, 
dreamy-eyed  and  shrinking  but  never  faltering 
wife.  The  facts  that  can  be  put  into  figures  — 
the  churches  built,  the  Sunday-schools  main- 
tained, the  church  members  enrolled,  the  minis- 
ters, four  or  more,  who  have  found  their  work 
in  and  through  Mr.  Douthit's  mission,  are  such 
as  to  challenge  admiration,  perhaps  to  defy 
competition  among  his  fellow  ministers.  But 
the  tangible  facts,  tho^e  that  evade  an  account- 
ing —  his  part  in  modifying  the  harshness, 
ameliorating  the  bigotry,  dissipating  the  illiter- 
acy, improving  the  quality  of  the  schools  and 
refining  and  humanizing  the  village,  city  and 


INTRODUCTION 


country  life  throughout  a  wide  area,  represent 
the  highest  achievements  of  this  missionary  in 
"  Egypt."  It  is  not  going  too  far  afield  to  dis- 
cover some  strains  of  the  humanitarian  faith 
preached  by  Jasper  Douthit,  represented  by  the 
better  fences,  the  more  passable  roads,  the  safer 
bridges,  the  flowers  in  the  front  yards,  the  well 
dressed  and  well  kempt  children  sitting  in  up-to- 
date  school  houses  and  receiving  efficient  tuition 
from  competent  teachers  in  the  countryside 
traversed  by  him  for  over  forty-five  years. 

When  Mr.  Douthit  comes  to  Chicago  there  is 
a  parish  meeting  of  his  own  ready  to  greet  him, 
and  the  present  writer  has  heard  his  name  pro- 
nounced with  love  and  affection  beyond  the 
farthest  ranges  of  the  Rockies  by  those  who 
have  been  strengthened  by  him  in  times  of  sor- 
row, who  perchance  have  plighted  marriage 
vows  in  his  presence,  or  who  have  brought  their 
children  to  receive  baptismal  blessings  at  his 
hands. 

The  Lithia  Springs  Chautauqua,  situated  in 
its  ample  and  splendid  forest,  with  its  annually 
increasing  throng  of  happy,  gentle,  appreci- 
ative men,  women  and  children,  drawn  from 
Douthit's  territory,  for  his  bailiwick  is  a  wide 
one,  is  a  fitting  and  eloquent  witness  to  the 
[v  ] 


INTRODUCTION 


effectiveness  of  his  work.  The  Unitarian 
friends  who  through  the  American  Unitarian 
Association  and  other  channels  have  made  this 
work  possible  through  all  these  years,  can  find 
no  higher  use  for  their  money  than  to  con- 
tinue their  support,  with  increasing  confidence 
and  generosity,  of  this  great  inter-denomina- 
tional and  cross-party  conference  that  tells  so 
mightily  for  personal  purity,  civic  righteous- 
ness, and  the  spiritual  life. 

I  have  used  the  word  "  sad "  in  connection 
with  the  life  of  my  friend  Jasper  Douthit. 
Like  all  sensitive  souls,  he  has  a  great  capacity 
for  suffering.  As  will  be  seen,  he  has  ever  been 
torn  by  his  ideals ;  his  spirit  has  been  often 
fretted  by  the  great  chasm  between  the  things 
he  would  and  the  things  he  could  do.  But 
Brother  Douthit's  power  of  enjoyment  is  also 
great,  and  I  regret  that  he  has  not  been  able 
to  put  in  the  sunshine  which  made  the  shadows 
in  the  picture  possible.  But  what  artist  can? 

My  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Douthit  began  in 
the  student  days  at  Meadville.  My  first  visit  to 
his  home  was  while  he  still  lived  on  the  old  home- 
stead in  the  log  house  with  a  frame  enlarge- 
ment, necessitated  by  the  increasing  family. 
This  home  at  that  day  could  be  reached  only 


INTRODUCTION 


on  horseback ;  it  was  a  voyage  by  water  and  not 
a  journey  by  land,  so  profound  were  the  muddy 
depths  between  the  dreary  little  station  and  the 
lonely  little  cabin.  I  have  been  in  close  touch 
with  him  and  his  work  throughout  the  forty  or 
more  years  of  our  acquaintance.  I  think  I 
opened  the  campaign  in  Shelbyville,  preaching 
the  first  sermon  in  the  old  court-house  that  led 
to  the  establishment  of  his  church.  I  think  I 
know  the  man  and  the  temper  of  his  spirit.  Be- 
fore the  occasion  comes,  Douthit  is  often  cast 
down ;  after  the  occasion  passes,  he  is  often  torn 
with  disappointment  and  humiliation;  but  he 
ever  rises  to  the  occasion  and  his  uttered  words 
are  charged  with  courage,  while  his  message 
is  ever  a  cheerful  one.  The  sickly,  sorrowful 
looking  man,  once  on  the  platform  or  in  the 
pulpit,  takes  on  robustness.  His  eyes  flame, 
his  voice,  though  often  strident  and  sometimes 
shrieking,  always  carries  conviction  and  sym- 
pathy and  oftentimes  enthusiasm. 

Mr.  Douthit  and  I  have  not  always  agreed. 
There  have  been  times  when  I  have  seriously  dis- 
tressed him ;  I  probably  have  believed  more  in  his 
work  at  times  than  he  has  in  mine.  On  this  ac- 
count I  can  the  more  confidently  declare  the  po- 
tency of  the  man,  the  contagious  quality  of  his 
[  vii  ] 


INTRODUCTION 


faith.  His  spirit  was  larger  than  his  words, 
though  his  words  represented  ever  the  largest 
gospel  that  disturbed  his  countryside. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  support  which  his  mis- 
sion has  received  at  the  hands  of  the  Unitarians, 
mostly  from  the  east.  Great  credit  is  due  those 
who  have  held  up  the  hands  of  this  Unitarian 
missionary  whose  antecedents,  training,  manner 
and  method  were  so  un-Unitarian.  But  in  the 
interest  of  the  next  missionary  I  venture  to  add 
that  much  of  the  pathos  in  Douthit's  work  has 
been  rooted  in  the  carking  anxieties  as  to  how 
the  modest  needs  of  the  humble  home  were  to  be 
supplied.  The  support  was  always  enough  to 
keep  the  light  burning  on  the  pulpit,  but  not 
enough  to  make  the  heart  free  from  kitchen 
anxieties.  The  little  margin  between  the  "  just 
enough  to  keep  life  "  and  the  "  enough  to  make 
life  joyful "  as  well  as  loyal  was  often  wanting. 
Jasper  Douthit  has  never  been  an  extravagant 
man;  his  home  life  and  needs  were  of  the 
simplest  kind.  If  any  money  slipped  through 
his  fingers  it  was  always  for  "  the  cause,"  and 
still  it  is  sad  to  think  that  that  small  financial 
distance,  the  Dickens  "  six-pence "  that  made 
the  difference  between  happiness  and  misery, 


INTRODUCTION 


was  never  quite  covered  in  Douthit's  expense 
book. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  the  aggre- 
gate of  the  money  support  given  to  this  re- 
markable ministry  during  the  forty-five  or  more 
years  of  its  activity.  It  would  doubtless  seem 
a  goodly  sum,  but  compared  with  the  hopes 
raised,  the  purposes  strengthened,  the  loves  en- 
gendered, aye,  compared  with  the  sums  more 
lavishly  expended  on  less  important  and  less 
fertile  causes,  the  sum  would  indeed  be  paltry. 
And  certain  it  is  that  if  the  end  could  have 
been  anticipated  from  the  beginning,  if  the 
story,  even  as  inadequately  told  in  this  book, 
had  been  known  before  it  was  enacted,  far  more 
willingly  would  have  been  added  the  small  per- 
centage of  increase  which  would  have  made  the 
difference  between  anxiety  and  confidence,  sleep- 
less nights  and  grateful  sleep. 

Take  it  all  in  all,  I  think  the  readers  will  be 
glad  that  Jasper  Douthit  has  told  his  own  story. 
They  will  read  it,  now  with  tear-dimmed  eyes, 
and  again,  perhaps,  with  an  incredulous  smile. 
It  is  a  story  which  it  would  be  hard  to  parallel 
in  modern  American  life  for  its  uniqueness,  its 
historic  value,  its  heroic  persistency  and  its 
[  ix  ] 


INTRODUCTION 


spiritual  suggestiveness.  It  is  the  story  of  an 
Oberlin  of  southern  Illinois,  a  rustic  Channing 
of  the  prairies,  a  Theodore  Parker  of  the  log 
house,  reared  in  the  land  of  mud  and  malaria. 

JENKIN  LLOYD  JONES. 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 


I  was  born  October  10,  1834,  in  Shelby 
County,  Illinois,  on  a  farm  four  and  one-half 
miles  east  of  Shelbyville.  My  birthplace  was 
at  the  head  of  Jordan  Creek,  named  for  my 
mother's  father,  Francis  Jordan,  who  with  his 
family,  were  the  first  white  settlers  in  that 
vicinity,  whither  they  removed  in  1828.  The 
land  consists  chiefly  of  flat  prairie,  with  groves 
of  timber  bordering  the  creeks,  and  the  river 
Okaw,  which  at  its  mouth  is  called  the  Kaskaskia, 
flows  through  the  plain.  The  soil  around  my 
birthplace  is  black,  mucky,  and  very  fertile. 
The  roads  are  so  muddy  a  part  of  the  year  as 
to  be  almost  impassable  for  wagons.  Most  of 
the  land  was  originally  set  apart  by  the  state 
as  swamp  land,  considered  unfit  for  cultivation, 
and  was  sold  for  about  fifty  cents  an  acre.  By 
drainage  it  has  now  become  valuable  farm  land, 
and  is  worth  one  hundred  dollars  and  more  per 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

acre.  In  digging  wells,  logs  several  inches  in 
diameter  are  sometimes  found  from  twenty-five  to 
a  hundred  feet  below  the  surface.  Evidently  this 
country  was  once  covered  with  water  to  a  great 
depth.  Coal  and  gas  may  be  found  in  many 
places  at  the  depth  of  a  hundred  or  more  feet 
below  the  surface.  The  Lithia  mineral  springs 
are  in  the  Okaw  River  woods,  about  two  and  one- 
half  miles  from  my  birthplace.  These  springs 
boil  from  the  earth  and  at  intervals  emit  gas, 
so  that  if  fire  is  held  close  to  the  water  it  will 
burn. 

I  grew  up  where  I  was  born  and  worked  on  a 
farm  until  I  was  seventeen  years  old.  Here  on 
the  family  f arm  rest  the  bones  of  my  mother  and 
father  and  grandfather  and  grandmother 
Douthit  and  scores  of  relatives.  By  this  grave- 
yard is  the  Jordan  Unitarian  Chapel,  where  my 
brothers  and  sisters  and  most  of  their  children 
and  other  relatives  and  neighbors  worship.  My 
life  has  been  spent  in  Shelby  County,  excepting 
eighteen  months  when  I  was  with  my  parents 
in  Texas,  in  1843-1844;  part  of  a  year  at 
Wabash  College,  Crawfordsville,  Indiana,  in 
1856;  a  year  in  Hillsboro,  111.,  in  1858,  as 
Superintendent  of  Public  Schools;  a  year  in 
Massachusetts,  in  1858  and  1859,  in  the  employ 
[  2  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

of  Fowler  &  Wells  at  their  branch  office  in  Bos- 
ton, three  years  at  the  Meadville  School  in 
Pennsylvania,  1864  and  1867,  and  three  months 
immediately  after  graduation,  in  1867,  as  pas- 
tor of  the  Unitarian  Society  in  Princeton,  Il- 
linois. 

My  great-grandfather,  Evan  Douthit,  came 
with  his  family  from  Nashville,  Tenn.,  about 
1830,  and  built  a  log  cabin  home  five  miles  east 
of  where  Jordan  Chapel  now  stands.  What  in- 
terests me  about  this  cabin,  which  stood  until 
1896,  is  the  fact  that  this  grandsire  and  his 
little  Welsh-Irish  wife,  my  great-grandmother, 
who  lived  to  the  age  of  a  hundred  and  fifteen 
years  and  died  in  Palestine,  Texas,  were,  in  those 
early  days,  accustomed  to  walk  together  five 
miles  through  a  pathless  forest  and  high  prairie 
grass,  to  attend  religious  meetings  at  a  place 
two  miles  south  of  Lithia  Springs.  This  great- 
grandfather was  a  "  hardshell  "  Calvinistic  Bap- 
tist preacher.  About  two  years  before  I  was 
born,  he  and  his  family,  with  the  exception  of 
the  oldest  son,  my  grandfather,  moved  to  Texas, 
then  a  part  of  Mexico,  and  he  and  his  sons  were 
with  the  army  that  finally  captured  Santa  Anna 
and  made  Texas  an  independent  republic. 

My    father    and    grandfather    were    pioneer 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

farmers  and  cattle  dealers.  They  drove  herds 
of  cattle  all  the  way  across  the  prairie  from 
Shelby  County  to  Chicago,  years  before  there 
was  any  road  to  that  small  village  by  Lake 
Michigan. 

Andrew  E.  Douthit,  born  in  1814,  eldest  son 
of  John  Douthit,  who  was  the  eldest  son  of  Rev. 
Evan  Douthit,  was  married  to  Mary  Ann  Jor- 
dan, on  August  13,  1833.  These  were  my 
parents.  I  am  the  oldest  of  a  family  of  six 
sons  and  two  daughters,  one  son  having  died  in 
infancy.  Three  brothers  and  two  sisters  are 
now  living  near  me  and  have  ever  been  affection- 
ate co-workers  with  me.  One  brother  passed  to 
Heaven  over  thirty  years  ago,  after  a  brief  but 
brilliant  career  looking  toward  the  ministry. 
I  cannot  think  of  him  as  dead,  but  mightily 
alive  and  near  me  to  this  day. 

My  mother's  people,  as  far  back  as  I  can 
learn,  were  habitual  pioneers,  ever  keeping  on 
the  frontier.  They  came  to  the  territory  of 
Illinois  through  Tennessee  from  the  South 
about  the  year  1804.  In  that  year  seven  Jor- 
dan brothers  came  from  Smith  County,  Tennes- 
see, to  Williamson  County,  Illinois.  When  ten 
years  of  age,  my  mother  rode  behind  her  father 
on  horseback  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  to  this 
[  4  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

vicinity.  Soon  after  her  marriage  all  of  my 
mother's  people  emigrated  to  Texas.  Jordan's 
Saline,  noted  on  the  map  of  Texas,  was  founded 
by  my  uncle  John  Jordan.  Grandfather  Jor- 
dan and  some  others  of  the  family  died  in  Texas, 
and  most  of  the  survivors  pushed  on  to  Califor- 
nia about  the  time  of  Freemont's  journey  across 
the  mountains  to  that  country.  So  far  as  I 
can  ascertain,  the  Jordans  were  of  Welsh-Irish 
descent,  and  the  Douthits  were  Scotch-English 
and  early  immigrants  to  North  Carolina. 

My  mother  was  born  in  1814  in  a  fort  in 
Franklin  County,  southern  Illinois.  The  fort 
was  built  by  her  father,  Francis  Jordan,  and 
his  brother  Thomas,  to  protect  their  families 
and  other  pioneer  settlers  from  the  Indians. 
When  mother  was  six  years  old,  being  the 
youngest  of  a  large  family  of  brothers  and 
sisters,  her  father  married  for  a  second  wife 
Mrs.  Elizabeth  Dement,  a  widow  who  also  had 
a  large  family  of  children  by  her  first  husband. 
Some  of  this  step-grandmother's  children  have 
been  noted  for  public  service  to  the  state  and 
country.  Her  son,  Col.  John  Dement,  was  a 
member  of  the  Illinois  Legislature  with  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  Stephen  A.  Douglas  and  other 
celebrities.  Col.  Dement  married  the  daughter 
[  5  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

of  the  famous  Governor,  also  Brigadier  General, 
Dodge,  of  Iowa,  and  their  son,  Hon.  Henry  D. 
Dement,  served  honorably  as  Secretary  of  State 
of  Illinois  for  several  years. 

My  mother,  when  quite  young,  had  to  work 
hard  helping  to  keep  house  for  her  father's 
large  family  of  children  and  stepchildren.  She 
had  no  chance  to  go  to  school,  but  she  learned 
to  read  and  write  by  herself  after  the  day's 
work  was  done.  She  was  very  conscientious  — 
morbidly  so,  perhaps  —  and  extremely  sensitive 
to  blame,  but  her  conscience  compelled  her  to 
speak  out  plainly  for  what  she  believed  to  be 
right  and  against  what  she  believed  to  be  wrong ; 
and  for  her  frankness  she  was  often  blamed  by 
those  about  her.  She  would  weep  over  this, 
and  yet  persist  in  saying  the  unwelcome  things. 
Thus  when  we  were  in  Texas  I  often  heard  her 
denounce  slavery  and  plead  for  the  abused  ne- 
gro, and  she  would  not  consent  to  my  father's 
owning  slaves.  She  felt  that  she  must  also  say 
things  that  were  regarded  as  serious  heresies  in 
the  old  Baptist  church;  but  to  all  her  heretical 
remarks  the  sharp  sheriffs  of  the  faith  would 
say,  "  Sister  Mary  Ann  is  good  and  kind-hearted 
to  everybody,  she  doesn't  know  any  better  than, 
[  6  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

to  talk  that  way,  and  we  must  overlook  her  weak- 
ness." 

My  mother's  life  was  for  many  years  one  of 
great  trial  and  sorrow,  but  she  was  naturally 
hopeful  and  had  very  vivid  religious  expe- 
riences which  gave  her  comfort  and  peace  amidst 
the  sorest  trials.  My  first  memory  of  her  reli- 
gious experiences  made  a  deep  impression  upon 
my  life  and  I  will  relate  it  here. 

When  a  small  child  I  was  left  alone  one  day 
to  watch  her  where  she  had  lain  for  weeks,  help- 
less on  a  sick  bed.  It  was  thought  she  could 
not  recover.  I  was  suddenly  startled  by  her 
springing  from  the  bed  and  exclaiming, 
"Glory!  Glory!  Hallelujah!"  followed  by, 
some  other  words  about  hearing  a  heavenly 
voice  of  sweet  peace  and  good  cheer.  My 
father,  hearing  her  shouts,  came  running  to  the 
house.  I  cried  out  with  great  alarm,  until  my 
mother,  with  a  face  that  shone  out  like  an  an- 
gel's, spoke  soothingly  to  me,  saying  she  was  so 
full  of  joy  that  she  could  not  help  what  she 
did,  and  that  she  was  going  to  get  well.  She 
did  get  better,  and  lived  a  score  of  years  longer. 
Her  prayer  that  she  might  see  all  her  children 
grown  was  answered.  Not  long  after  that 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

heavenly  vision,  she  was  baptized  in  the  Okaw 
River.  A  great  crowd  witnessed  the  ceremony, 
and  people  said  they  never  knew  one  who  ap- 
peared so  like  an  angel.  Those  who  knew  her 
love  thus  to  think  of  her  to  this  day.  I  think 
of  her  too  when  first  her  father  and  all  her 
brothers  and  sisters  had  emigrated  to  what  was 
then  the  far  distant  region  of  Texas.  In  the 
night-time  I  often  heard  her  in  her  dreams  call 
the  names  of  her  loved  ones  so  loudly  as  to 
startle  me  from  my  sleep.  In  the  daytime  when 
she  read  a  letter  from  them  the  tears  would  flow 
and  she  would  drive  harder  at  her  spinning 
wheel  as  if  to  chase  away  sorrow,  rehearsing 
the  while  snatches  of  those  pathetic  verses  which 
Cowper  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Selkirk,  on  the 
lonely  isle  of  the  Pacific: 

"  I  am  out  of  humanity's  reach ; 

I  must  finish  my  journey  alone, 
Never  hear  the  sweet  music  of  speech  — 
I  start  at  the  sound  of  my  own. 

"  Religion !     What  treasure  untold 
Resides  in  that  heavenly  word ! 
More  precious  than  silver  and  gold, 
Or  all  that  this  earth  can  afford;" 

[   8   ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

Being  the  first  grandchild  and  son  of  the 
eldest  son  of  the  eldest  son  in  the  third  genera- 
tion, my  grandparents  made  much  of  me  —  I 
think  they  petted  me  to  my  hurt  in  some  re- 
spects. When  I  was  a  little  child  my  grand- 
mother would  take  me  in  her  lap  as  she  sat  in 
the  old  handmade  hickory  chair  before  the  wide 
open  fireplace  on  winter  evenings.  She  would 
show  me  the  pictures  in  the  big  family  Bible 
and  tell  me  the  stories  of  Joseph  and  his  breth- 
ren, and  the  good  Samaritan.  I  learned  more 
Bible  truth  from  that  grandmother  than  I  ever 
learned  from  the  preachers  of  my  early  years. 
In  fact  I  have  thought  the  good  seeds  planted 
in  my  heart  then  from  the  Great  Book  saved  me 
in  after  years  from  despising  the  Bible  when 
I  heard  the  preachers  quote  it  in  support  of 
slavery,  liquor-drinking,  the  horrible  doctrine  of 
infant  damnation,  and  the  unalterable  decree  of 
endless  torment  for  most  folks  —  even  the  good 
people  that  were  not  of  the  elect. 

That  memory  of  my  grandmother,  with  the 
open  Bible  and  pictures,  and  the  stories  she 
told  me  have  had  more  saving  power  over  my 
life  than  all  the  Greek  and  Latin,  the  philosophy 
and  theology,  or  the  higher  and  lower  criticism 

[  9  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

that  I  learned  in  adult  years,  though  this  later 
learning  was  very  helpful.  I  treasure  that  copy 
of  my  grandmother's  Bible  to-day  as  a  most 
precious  heirloom. 

I  think  it  was  in  the  fall  of  1843,  when  I  was 
about  nine  years  old,  that  my  father  and  grand- 
father Douthit,  with  part  of  their  families,  went 
to  visit  my  mother's  father's  kindred,  who  had 
gone  to  Texas.  We  went  in  wagons  over 
rough,  dangerous  roads,  being  one  month  on  the 
journey.  There  we  visited  my  great-grand- 
father and  great-grandmother  Douthit,  near 
Palestine,  Texas.  Great-grandmother  was  over 
one  hundred  years  old  then.  She  was  little  in 
body,  weighing  not  more  than  eighty  pounds, 
but  bright  in  mind  and  "  spry  as  a  cricket,"  the 
neighbors  said.  I  can  see  her  now,  in  memory, 
skipping  out  of  doors,  to  pick  up  chips  to  cook 
the  family  meals  in  the  great  open  fireplace. 
Sometimes  she  sent  me.  Once  when  I  was  loiter- 
ing for  play,  my  mother  called  me  to  hurry  up. 
Just  then  great-grandfather  passed  by,  leaning 
upon  his  staff.  He  looked  at  me  with  rebuking 
eyes  and  said :  "  My  boy,  if  you  don't  mind 
your  mother,  you  can  never  grow  to  be  a  good 
man."  I  never  forgot  that  rebuke. 

I  have  a  most  beautiful  picture  in  memory  of 
[  10  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

the  last  time  I  saw  the  dear  old  grandsire.  It 
was  at  a  religious  service  in  the  country  meet- 
ing-house near  Palestine.  Great-grandfather 
was  the  preacher.  He  was  tall  and  spare,  with 
long  hair  falling  upon  his  shoulders,  and  beard, 
white  as  snow,  reaching  far  down  his  breast. 
His  countenance  was  florid  and  his  eyes  pierc- 
ing; but  his  body  was  bent  and  feeble  with 
nearly  ninety  years.  He  trembled  with  "  the 
palsy,"  as  they  called  it,  so  that  while  he  stood 
to  preach  there  were  two  stout  men  to  support 
him,  one  at  each  arm.  The  sermon  was  very 
short.  I  cannot  remember  the  words  he  spoke, 
but  I  caught  the  spirit  of  it ;  and  when  in  after 
years  I  read  the  beautiful  legend  of  St.  John 
the  Revelator,  in  his  old  age,  an  exile  on  the 
Isle  of  Patmos,  I  always  thought  of  the  two 
persons  as  if  they  were  one  picture  and  had 
preached  to  me  the  same  sermon :  "  Little  chil- 
dren, love  one  another." 

My  first  experience  with  African  slavery  was 
in  Texas.  I  worked  with  the  slaves  in  the  cot- 
ton fields  and  cotton  gins,  and  came  to  love  the 
negroes,  for  they  were  very  kind  to  me.  They 
would  gather  in  their  cabins  on  Sunday  and  of 
nights,  to  hear  me  read  the  Bible  to  them.  Then 
seemed  to  come  to  me  my  first  call  to  preach. 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

I  saw  slaves  for  slightest  offenses  cruelly  beaten 
by  drunken  overseers,  till  blood  ran  down  their 
bodies  to  their  heels.  I  took  their  part,  wept 
aloud  at  their  suffering,  and  longed  to  live  to 
help  them  toward  the  North  Star. 

In  1844,  as  we  returned  home  from  Texas  on 
a  boat  down  Red  River  to  New  Orleans,  there 
was  a  beautiful  mulatto  mother  with  a  bright 
child  on  board.  My  mother  had  four  children 
then,  myself  the  eldest.  We  played  with  the 
mulatto  child  and  came  to  love  it  dearly.  I  re- 
member how  the  mother  of  that  child  would  say 
to  my  mother :  "  I  love  my  children  as  you 
do  yours,  but  nobody  can  tear  your  children 
away  from  you  and  sell  them  to  different  owners 
as  so  many  cattle.  But  I  have  had  all  of  mine 
but  one  sold  from  me  and  widely  separated  from 
each  other.  Only  this  little  one  is  left  with  me. 
And  now  they  are  taking  me  and  it  to  sell  at 
auction  in  New  Orleans." 

Then  she  would  weep  bitterly  and  my  mother 
would  weep  with  her.  Finally,  as  our  boat  ap- 
proached the  wharf  in  New  Orleans,  that  slave 
mother  with  her  child  in  her  arms  went  over- 
board, and  in  spite  of  all  attempts  to  prevent, 
they  sank  forever.  It  was  thus  that  distressed 
mother  sought  to  escape  from  the  hell  of  slavery. 


II 


In  body,  I  am  a  degenerate  son  of  my 
foreparents,  particularly  of  the  Douthit  family. 
Great-grandfather  Douthit  was  tall  and  thin, 
but  of  wiry  muscle.  His  eldest  son,  my  grand- 
father, was  a  giant  in  strength.  He  and  Col. 
Davy  Crockett,  the  pioneer  congressman  and 
brave  soldier,  were  related,  and  were  near  neigh- 
bors in  eastern  Tennessee.  Colonel  Crockett  was 
famous  for  physical  prowess.  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  he  volunteered  to  fight  for  the  in- 
dependence of  Texas  and  he  and  his  company 
were  overwhelmed  and  all  killed  in  the  Alamo. 
I  have  heard  those  say  who  knew,  that  my 
grandfather  was  the  only  man  in  the  vicinity 
of  Colonel  Crockett's  home  in  eastern  Tennessee 
who  could  lift  equally  with  him.  In  clearing 
up  the  woodland  for  cultivation,  when  a  very 
heavy  log  was  to  be  lifted  and  carried  to  the 
heap  to  be  burned,  John  Douthit  and  David 
Crockett  were  the  only  two  that  could  lift  to- 
gether, one  at  each  end  of  the  handspike  held 
under  the  big  end  of  the  log.  My  father 
[  13  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

weighed   about   two    hundred    and   seventy-five 
pounds. 

I  was  a  puny,  crying  child,  my  mother  said, 
and  she  hardly  expected  to  raise  me.  I  have 
never  weighed  more  than  a  hundred  and  thirty 
pounds,  and  am  nearly  six  feet  in  height. 
When  thirty-five  years  of  age,  insurance  com- 
panies refused  to  take  any  risk  on  my  life ;  and 
during  much  of  my  ministerial  life,  especially 
during  strenuous  periods,  I  have  been  horizontal 
at  least  one  day  in  the  week,  on  an  average, 
and  wholly  unfit  for  any  good  to  anybody. 
My  mother  died  at  fifty-eight,  and  I  did  not 
expect  to  live  beyond  that  age.  But  here  I  am 
at  the  age  of  seventy-three,  in  better  health  in 
some  respects  than  at  any  time  in  my  life.  To 
be  so  well  and  able  to  keep  busy  is  the  surprise 
of  my  life  and  a  marvel  to  those  who  have 
known  me  so  long.  I  ascribe  it  primarily  to 
the  power  of  spirit  over  matter.  I  early  learned 
to  believe  that  the  religion  of  Jesus  taught 
that  it  is  sinful  to  abuse  the  body.  I  came  to 
believe  that  an  ounce  of  prevention  is  worth 
more  than  a  pound  of  cure.  Therefore,  from 
early  in  life,  I  have  totally  abstained  from  in- 
toxicants, narcotics,  opiates,  and  all  harmful 
drugs.  I  have  not  in  my  lifetime  spent  for 
[  14  ] 


CABIN   BUILT  IN    1830   BY    MR.    DOUTHIT's    GREAT-GRANDFATHER 


OLD    LOG    CHURCH,    BUILT    ABOUT    SIXTY    YEARS    AGO 

The  he-wn  logs  are  now  covered  with  boards 


myself  and  my  family  five  dollars  for  treatment 
with  drugs,  and  not  a  dollar  that  I  can  remem- 
ber for  patent  medicines.  My  diet  for  over  fifty 
years  has  been  mostly  fruits,  cereals  and  vege- 
tables. 

I  am  convinced  that  there  is  nothing  that  will 
strengthen  a  feeble  constitution  and  so  conduce 
to  health  and  long  life  as  to  be  at  peace  with 
the  good  God  and  to  seek  to  bless  one's  neigh- 
bors. Alas !  the  graveyards  around  me  are 
populous  with  those  of  much  stronger  natural 
constitutions  than  I.  They  died  prematurely 
for  lack  of  knowledge  and  for  want  of  more 
vital  religion.  They  became  slaves  to  bad  hab- 
its in  eating,  drinking  and  living. 

The  first  dollar  I  earned  was  by  pulling 
"  movers'  "  wagons  out  of  the  mud  holes  with  a 
yoke  of  oxen.  The  state  road  along  which  emi- 
grants moved  passed  by  my  father's  home,  and 
in  the  rainy  season  the  wagons  often  stuck  in 
the  mud.  I  spent  that  first  dollar  for  a  year's 
subscription  to  the  Phrenological  Journal,  pub- 
lished by  Fowler  &  Wells,  in  New  York  City. 
That  journal  taught  me  the  great  importance 
of  self-control  and  of  a  "  sound  mind  in  a  sound 
body."  I  never  spent  a  dollar  in  my  life  that 
I  think  resulted  in  greater  benefit  to  me.  It 
[  15  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

led  to  information  that  brought  greater  good. 
I  made  my  start  as  a  public  lecturer  by  speak- 
ing on  phrenology  and  kindred  subjects.  I  am 
aware  of  the  fact  that  phrenology  has  been 
abused  by  being  associated  in  many  minds  with 
"  bumpology  "  and  the  examining  of  heads  for 
twenty-five  cents  each,  somewhat  as  the  sublime 
science  of  astronomy  has  been  abused  by  as- 
trology. Nevertheless,  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples and  practical  importance  of  phrenology 
are  now  recognized  by  all  who  have  thoroughly 
investigated  it,  including  such  eminent  scientists, 
statesmen  and  philanthropists  as  Spencer,  Glad- 
stone, Horace  Mann,  Dr.  Samuel  G.  Howe,  and 
Henry  Ward  Beecher.  I  had  the  reputation  at 
one  time  of  being  an  expert  in  the  phrenologi- 
cal delineation  of  character.  I  could  hypnotize 
though  I  never  could  be  hypnotized;  but  as  a 
lecturer  on  psychology  I  became  convinced  that 
I  was  using  learned  words  about  a  mysterious 
force  that  I  did  not  at  all  understand,  and,  of 
course,  could  not  explain  —  a  force  that  in  the 
hands  of  the  unscrupulous  might  do  much  mis- 
chief. Therefore  I  stopped  lecturing  or  dem- 
onstrating on  the  subject;  and  for  the  past 
forty  years  I  have  seldom  mentioned  it  pub- 
licly. I  continue,  however,  to  hold  an  open 
[  16  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

mind  ready  for  more  light  upon  psychological 
questions. 

When  a  boy  I  was  influenced  by  others  to  do 
what  I  would  not  have  done  if  I  had  been  told 
by  those  I  loved  and  trusted  that  it  was  wrong. 
In  fact,  I  did  things  I  would  not  have  done  if 
I  had  ever  learned  that  the  Bible  condemned 
such  acts,  because  my  mother  and  my  grand- 
mother told  me  that  the  Bible  contained  God's 
word,  and  I  believed  them.  I  well  remember 
when  I  would  have  shamefully  violated  one  or 
more  of  the  Ten  Commandments  but  for  the 
authority  of  my  mother's  Bible.  This  fact 
convinces  me  of  the  danger  in  arousing  doubts 
about  the  Bible  in  the  minds  of  children.  It 
were  infinitely  wiser  and  better,  first  and  always, 
to  emphasize  the  everlasting  truths  of  this 
Book  of  books.  These  truths  are  mighty  to 
save  from  sin  and  error  —  mighty  to  create  the 
faith  that  makes  faithful.  I  have  known  too 
many  young  people  led  into  chronic  skepticism 
and  become  libertines  by  being  taught  that  the 
Bible  is  full  of  error  and  of  no  authority.  Let 
us  welcome  biblical  criticism,  but  it  should  be 
given  wisely  at  the  proper  age,  and  in  a  reverent 
spirit,  so  as  to  create  rather  than  destroy  love 
for  the  truth. 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

In  boyhood  my  diet  was  necessarily  very  sim- 
ple, mostly  corn  bread  and  milk  and  fruit,  and 
I  lived  much  of  the  time  in  the  open  air  as  cow- 
boy and  plowboy.  However,  I  began  life  with 
one  dreadfully  dangerous  habit ;  namely,  the 
custom  of  taking  a  dram  of  whiskey  every 
morning  before  breakfast  for  the  sake  of  health. 
It  was  claimed  that  it  would  prevent  the  ague 
and  milk  sickness,  which  in  early  days  were  most 
prevalent  and  dread  diseases  in  the  vicinity  of 
my  home.  The  habit  grew,  of  course,  so  that 
we  must  take  a  dram  before  each  meal  and  then 
one  between  meals,  and  still  oftener  on  stormy 
days  and  in  very  cold  or  very  hot  weather.  In 
the  harvest  field  we  must  drink  liquor  every 
time  we  drank  water.  Once  in  hay-making, 
when  I  was  about  sixteen  years  old  I  drank  till 
I  was  so  tipsy  that  I  talked  and  behaved  very 
foolishly.  When  I  came  to  myself,  I  felt  ex- 
tremely mortified  and  vowed  to  God  that  I 
would  never  drink  another  drop.  It  was  a  hard 
fight  to  keep  that  vow.  I  was  ridiculed  and 
laughed  at  by  almost  everybody  except  my 
mother.  They  said  I  was  a  temperance  fanatic, 
though  I  hardly  knew  what  that  meant.  I  had 
never  heard  a  temperance  lecture  and  knew  noth- 
ing of  taking  the  pledge,  but  I  was  ambitious 
[  18  1 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

to  have  good  sense  and  grow  manly,  and  I  felt 
that  liquor  would  spoil  me.  The  vow  then 
made  has  been  kept  till  this  day,  excepting  that 
once,  years  ago,  I  was  tempted  by  a  physician 
to  take  a  little  wine  for  my  stomach's  sake,  as 
Paul  advised  Timothy ;  but  I  made  haste  to  re- 
pent and  have  not  back-slidden  since.  My  old 
family  doctor,  with  whom  I  advised  for  forty 
years  and  who  knew  the  fate  of  my  father,  said, 
"  Douthit,  I  would  not  prescribe  liquor  to  you 
for  a  hundred-acre  farm."  He  knew  there  was 
danger  of  kindling  the  unquenchable  fire  that 
has  destroyed  so  many  otherwise  happy  homes 
and  blasted  so  many  lives. 

I  had  to  work  early  and  late,  helping  mother 
and  father,  from  the  time  I  was  six  years  old, 
and  without  much  play,  excepting  the  little 
time  at  school  where  I  had  nothing  to  do  but  say 
over  A  B  C's  three  or  four  times  daily  and 
play  "  bull  pen "  and  "  hop  scotch "  at  the 
noon  hour.  It  was  rough  frontier  life;  very 
rough,  my  children  and  grandchildren  would 
think.  The  only  clothes  I  wore  were  made  by 
my  mother.  She  spun,  wove  and  sewed  them 
with  her  own  hands.  They  were  made  of  flax, 
tow,  cotton  or  wool.  When  I  did  not  go  bare- 
headed, my  cap  was  home-made  of  cloth,  my  hat 

[  19  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHITS  STORY 

was  made  by  hand  out  of  wheat  straw.  I  went 
barefoot,  except  in  winter;  and  then  my  father 
must  make  the  shoes  for  the  whole  family,  and 
mine  would  not  get  made  until  very  cold  weather. 
Meantime  I  would  have  to  walk  barefoot  over 
the  frozen  ground,  or  wade  through  snow  or 
mud,  to  feed  cattle,  sheep  and  hogs,  and  haul 
fire-wood.  I  must  have  been  ten  or  twelve 
years  of  age  when  I  saw  the  first  pair  of  boots. 
They  were  made  by  a  Pennsylvania  Dutchman 
who  moved  into  the  neighborhood.  It  marked 
an  era  in  my  life  when  my  father  got  him  to 
make  my  first  boots.  It  created  as  much  talk 
to  hear  of  a  man  in  the  country  who  could  make 
boots  as  it  did  when  the  first  train  of  cars  came. 
There  was  a  rush  to  the  boot-maker.  He  would 
make  promises  and  fail  again  and  again  to  keep 
them,  so  that  I  had  to  go  something  less  than 
a  dozen  times  before  I  got  my  boots.  But  it 
was  a  greater  fortune  than  it  would  be  for  me 
to  get  a  fine  horse  and  buggy  now,  badly  as  I 
sometimes  feel  the  need  of  them. 

The  memories  of  my  home  for  the  first  ten 
years  of  my  life  are  very  precious,  bright  and 
beautiful.  I  have  in  my  recollection  a  blessed 
picture  of  our  family,  after  the  day  of  toil, 
seated  around  the  great  open  fireplace  with  the 
[  20  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

old  lard  lamp  on  the  table  or  the  tallow-dip  can- 
dle, which  was  the  luxury  then  for  light; 
with  mother  knitting  or  sewing  or  seated  at  the 
little  spinning-wheel  spinning  flax,  while  father 
read  aloud  from  David  Crockett,  Weems's  Life 
of  Francis  Marion,  Robinson  Crusoe  or  the 
Bible,  or  sang  some  good  old  hymns.  If  all 
the  memories  of  that  home  for  years  after  could 
have  been  as  lovely  and  blessed  as  those  of  the 
first  few  years,  it  would  have  been  a  richer  leg- 
acy for  my  father's  children  than  all  the  wealth 
of  Solomon. 

Alas,  for  the  fact  that  so  many  once  equally 
happy  homes  have  been  ruined  and  lives  em- 
bittered by  that  insidious  evil,  strong  drink !  In 
these  early  years  I  often  heard  my  father  say: 
"  A  man  should  drink  moderately  and  control 
himself.  Whenever  I  can't  drink  without  go- 
ing to  excess,  I  will  stop."  He  was  a  man  of 
remarkable  will-power,  but,  nevertheless,  through 
the  associations  of  public  life  and  the  treating 
custom,  he  did  get  to  drinking  till  he  was 
a  terror  to  his  best  beloved,  and  even  the  officers 
of  the  law  would  flee  from  him.  Then  his  nat- 
urally strong  will  was  destroyed.  He  was  a 
helpless,  miserable  victim  of  that  which  made 
him  sometimes  a  raving  maniac.  And  finally, 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

as  a  last  resort,  to  prevent  his  taking  the  lives 
of  his  family  it  was  necessary  to  put  him  under 
the  bonds  of  public  law. 

I  had  an  opportunity  to  know  much  of  the 
habits  of  people  in  this  region.  My  father 
kept  the  post-office,  called  Locust  Grove,  at  our 
home,  five  miles  east  of  Shelbyville,  over  sixty 
years  ago,  when  the  mail  was  carried  on  a  stage 
coach  from  Terre  Haute  through  Charleston, 
Shelbyville,  etc.,  to  Springfield.  The  Locust 
Grove  precinct  election  was  held  for  years  at 
our  house.  My  father  for  much  of  his  life 
held  some  office  of  trust.  He  was  for  several 
years  sheriff  and  ex-officio  collector  of  the 
county.  He  collected  all  the  taxes  in  the 
county,  traveling  from  township  to  township  to 
do  it.  The  revenue  must  be  paid  in  gold  and 
silver,  and  father  hauled  it  up  to  Springfield  in 
a  two-horse  covered  wagon.  I  served  part  of 
the  time  as  his  deputy,  or  assistant,  and  thus 
became  acquainted  with  many  people.  The 
county  officers  were  generous,  sociable,  pleasant 
men,  and  the  custom  of  treating  to  drinks 
caused  most  of  them  to  fall  victims  to  the  habit. 
Thus  many  men  of  the  most  popular  qualities 
were  ruined,  among  them  some  of  my  nearest 
and  dearest.  For  these  reasons  my  first  mis- 
[  22  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

sion  work  was  in  fighting  this  evil.  In  these 
battles  I  have  received  the  severest  wounds  of 
my  life.  I  have  been  cursed,  libeled  and  black- 
mailed again  and  again,  and  my  life  and  prop- 
erty have  been  often  in  peril. 

LIBERTY,  UNION,  CHARITY,  TEMPERANCE  AND 
RIGHTEOUSNESS  i —  These  words  have  ever  had 
a  special  charm  to  me  since  I  first  caught  any 
of  their  meaning, —  though,  like  all  the  great 
words,  they  yield  a  thousand  times  more  mean- 
ing the  longer  the  things  they  stand  for  are 
pondered,  even  as  the  real  America  has  been  ex- 
tending ever  since  Columbus  sighted  a  little  of 
its  shores.  My  favorite  text  was  Paul's  theme 
before  Felix :  "  Righteousness,  temperance  and 
the  judgment  to  come."  I  warned  of  the  judg- 
ment to  come  against  what  to  me  were  the  twin 
evils, —  strong  drink  and  African  slavery. 

Very  early,  as  I  have  said,  the  serpent  began 
to  crawl  through  our  own  home.  There  was  an 
old  still-house  near  by,  and  the  candidate  for 
office  that  was  most  lavish  in  treating  voters 
to  whiskey  was  usually  elected.  I  have  seen 
kegs  of  liquor  placed  at  the  polling  place  all 
day,  free  as  water  for  everybody,  and  at  night 
almost  every  one  would  be  more  or  less  drunk, 
including  the  judges  and  clerks  of  the  election. 
[  23  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

It  was  the  custom  sixty  years  ago  here  on 
Christmas  and  New  Year's  for  neighbors  to 
come  together  at  our  house  and  have  what  was 
called  a  whiskey  stew  and  spree.  A  big  iron 
kettle  or  pot  (used  for  making  soap  and  wash- 
ing clothes)  that  held  eight  or  ten  gallons,  was 
filled  with  whiskey  and  other  stuff,  and  made  hot 
and  sweetened  for  men  and  women,  and  boys 
and  girls  to  drink.  This  was  the  Christmas  or 
New  Year's  treat.  The  decanter  of  "  bitters  " 
stood  on  the  sideboard  in  many  houses,  and  the 
preachers  who  were  being  entertained  drank  be- 
fore and  after  the  sermon.  When  a  small  boy, 
I  attended  a  sort  of  bar,  a  grocery  store  kept 
by  my  father  where  sugar,  coffee,  etc.,  and 
whiskey  were  sold,  and  felt  honored  in  the  doing 
until  my  eyes  were  opened  to  the  horror  of  it.  A 
great-hearted  man,  who  was  very  kind  to  me 
and  whom  I  loved  when  he  was  sober,  became  a 
terror  to  his  family  and  to  everybody.  He  said 
he  couldn't  help  it,  and  so  in  desperate  remorse 
he  resolved  to  kill  himself  with  drink,  and  he 
did. 

I  see  him  now  as  he  came  to  our  "  grocery  " 
(dramshop)  one  day  with  a  sled  drawn  over  the 
snow  by  a  bob-tailed  horse,  saying  that  he  had 
come  for  his  last  barrel  of  whiskey.  It  was 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

loaded  on  his  sled  and  he  got  astride  and  started 
homeward,  saying:  "This  is  my  coffin."  When 
he  drank  till  he  was  so  weak  he  could  not  help 
himself  to  it,  the  doctor  was  called  and  said  he 
must  have  a  little  toddy  (weakened  whiskey)  to 
keep  him  alive.  I  sat  by  him  and  gave  him  the 
toddy  in  a  teaspoon  till  he  breathed  his  last.  I 
would  not  obey  such  medical  advice  now.  I  saw 
many  others  going  down  to  this  death.  I  saw 
homes  made  miserable.  I  was  alarmed,  and 
would  tend  bar  no  more. 


Ill 


My  first  hard  battle  was  the  struggle  for  an 
education.  When  sixteen  years  old  I  had  at- 
tended a  district  school  only  about  nine  months, 
and  most  of  that  time  I  was  reciting  over  and 
over  again,  four  times  daily,  my  A  B  C's  and 
A-b,  Ab's.  That  was  then  the  foolish  method 
of  teaching.  I  learned  to  read  at  home  with  my 
mother.  The  first  words  she  taught  me  was  the 
title  of  the  family  Bible.  The  first  scripture  I 
remember  learning  was  Proverbs,  the  fourth 
chapter,  and  particularly  this  seventh  verse: 
"Wisdom  is  the  principal  thing;  therefore  get 
wisdom  and  with  all  thy  getting  get  understand- 
ing." 

My  father  was  an  honest  man  with  excellent 
ability  for  business,  and  possessing  very  popu- 
lar qualities.  He  would  have  been  wealthy, 
but  for  strong  drink.  He  loved  his  children  and 
wanted  to  do  his  best  for  them;  but  he  was 
deeply  imbued  with  Predestinarian  Baptist  ideas 
about  religion  and  education. 

The  Baptist  preachers  were  frequently  enter- 
[  26  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

tained  at  my  father's  house,  and  to  hear  them 
talk  one  would  suppose  they  believed  that  all 
book  knowledge,  except  of  the  Bible,  and  per- 
haps arithmetic,  was  of  the  devil.  They  seemed 
to  think  that  if  children  learned  to  read,  write 
and  cipher  so  as  to  do  ordinary  business,  it  was 
sufficient.  My  father  seemed  to  think  that  way. 
When  I  would  beg  him  to  let  me  go  to  school,  he 
would  say,  in  the  summer  time,  that  maybe  I 
could  go  when  the  crop  was  harvested.  Then, 
after  harvest,  he  would  say  he  could  not  do 
without  me  to  help  feed  and  herd  stock,  for  he 
kept  many  cattle  and  hogs.  The  result  was  that 
I  could  go  to  school  but  a  few  weeks  each  year. 
I  grew  more  and  more  dissatisfied  with  my  ig- 
norance, and  lost  hope  that  my  father  would 
allow  me  to  get  an  education.  I  had  read  and 
re-read  the  few  books  in  our  house  and  had 
studied  far  into  the  nights  after  working  hard 
all  day.  About  the  only  books  I  had  to  read 
until  I  was  about  sixteen  years  of  age  were  the 
Bible,  Robinson  Crusoe,  and  the  Life  of  David 
Crockett,  written  by  himself. 

I  wanted  more  books,  and  used  to  go  into  the 

forest  on  Sundays,  without  my  parents  knowing 

it,  and  chop  cord-wood  to  earn  money  to  buy 

books.     I  ordered  the  books  from  New  York 

[  27  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

City  by  express.  The  nearest  express  office  then 
was  Springfield,  sixty  miles  distant.  In  due 
time  notice  came  that  the  books  were  at  the  ex- 
press office.  How  could  I  get  the  box?  There 
was  no  railroad  and  no  way  I  knew  of  to  get  the 
package  except  to  send  by  my  father.  He  was 
the  sheriff  of  Shelby  County,  and  also  collector 
of  all  the  taxes  in  the  county.  The  taxes  must 
be  paid  in  gold  and  silver,  and  when  he  had  col- 
lected a  chest  full,  he  put  it  in  a  covered  wagon, 
and,  accompanied  by  a  guard,  with  two  horses- 
took  it  to  Springfield,  the  state  capital.  I  asked 
him  to  bring  my  books  on  one  of  these  trips. 
He  seemed  to  think  there  was  dangerous  heresy 
in  the  books,  and  did  not  bring  them.  I  felt 
wronged,  and  told  our  hired  man  so.  He 
thought  so  too.  He  was  an  illiterate  fellow  who 
went  on  sprees  occasionally,  but  he  swore  he 
would  help  me  get  the  books.  I  told  him  I  was 
determined,  not  only  to  get  the  books,  but  to 
stay  away  until  I  got  an  education,  and  he  vol- 
unteered to  give  me  his  wages  for  that  purpose. 
He  gave  me  three  silver  dollars  to  begin  with. 
One  Sunday  afternoon  in  springtime  I  stole 
away  from  home,  weeping  as  I  went,  for  I  loved 
home  dearly.  I  walked  ten  miles  to  the  stage 
stand  on  the  way  to  Springfield.  Then,  hungry 
[  28  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

and  weary,  I  waited  for  the  stage  coach  and 
four  horses  that  carried  the  mail  and  passengers 
across  the  state  via  Charleston  and  Shelbyville 
to  Springfield.  It  was  late  at  night  when  the 
stage  coach  came  along.  The  passengers  quizzed 
me  as  to  where  I  came  from,  whither  bound 
and  what  for.  I  frankly  told  them  all.  Most 
of  them  advised  me  to  go  back  home  to  my 
mother.  There  was  one  stout  burly  man  with 
long  black  beard,  whom  I  took  to  be  a  cattle 
dealer,  who  said  gruffly  to  me  that  I  was  doing 
wrong  and  should  go  back  home.  But  one 
good  man  commended  my  course  and  hoped  I 
would  be  a  good  boy  and  make  a  useful  man. 
We  rode  all  night,  arriving  in  Springfield  about 
daybreak.  I  got  my  box  of  books  as  soon  as  the 
express  office  was  opened  and  took  it  into  a  quiet 
corner  of  a  store  to  examine  the  contents.  Be- 
sides some  books  on  self -education  and  the  laws 
of  health,  there  was  a  phrenological  bust  by  L. 
N.  Fowler.  A  bald-headed  man  eyed  me  curi- 
ously as  I  opened  the  box,  and  asked  where  I 
came  from  and  what  I  meant  to  do.  I  told  him 
that  I  had  run  away  from  home  to  get  an  educa- 
tion. He  shook  his  head  ominously  and  said: 
"  My  lad,  you  better  go  back  to  your  mother, 
quicker."  Finding  no  comfort  there,  I  went  for 
[  29  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

a  walk  on  the  street  and  saw  a  sign  of  "  Book- 
binding and  Store."  That  was  a  charming 
sight,  such  as  I  had  never  before  seen.  I  went 
in  and  asked  to  work  for  my  board  and  clothes 
in  that  store  for  six  months  or  a  year.  It 
seemed  a  splendid  opportunity  to  get  knowledge. 
The  head  man  took  quite  an  interest  in  me,  and 
after  much  close  questioning  offered  to  give  me 
a  year's  schooling  if  I  would  bind  myself  to 
serve  an  apprenticeship  in  book-binding. 

I  promised  to  report  next  day  if  I  decided  to 
accept  the  proposal.  I  hesitated  to  be  bound  so 
long  a  time  to  a  stranger.  As  I  walked,  or 
rather  gawked,  about  the  only  capital  city  I  had 
ever  seen,  I  met  a  little  bow-legged  man  who 
looked  at  me  curiously  and  asked  if  I  wanted  to 
hire  at  work.  I  told  him  that  I  did.  He  asked 
if  I  could  drive  oxen  hitched  to  a  dirt-scraper  on 
the  railroad.  I  told  him  I  thought  I  could. 
Then  he  said  he  would  give  me  nine  dollars  a 
month  on  trial,  if  I  could  begin  at  once.  I 
agreed  to  do  so  because  I  was  almost  penniless 
and  wanted  to  earn  my  bread  and  board  at  least. 
Then  the  little  man  told  me  the  work  was  to  help 
build  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad,  near  the  west 
line  of  Shelby  County  and  sixteen  miles  from 
Shelbyville.  This  surprised  me.  I  shrank 
[  30  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

from  going  back  so  near  home.  However,  I 
felt  that  I  must  stick  to  my  contract.  The  little 
man  promised  to  bring  my  box  of  books,  and 
the  next  morning  just  as  the  sun  rose,  I  started 
with  face  toward  it,  to  walk  to  the  place  where 
I  was  to  work,  about  forty-five  miles  southeast 
of  Springfield. 

About  noon  I  grew  weary  and  faint,  and 
called  at  a  one-room  cabin  and  asked  the  woman 
for  a  drink  of  water.  She  waited  on  me  cheer- 
fully, inquired  where  I  was  going,  and  said: 
"  Poor  boy,  you  look  as  if  you  were  almost 
starved.  Won't  you  have  a  glass  of  milk  and  a 
piece  of  gooseberry  pie  ?  " 

I  replied  that  I  would  like  it  very  much,  but 
did  not  have  enough  money  to  pay  for  it  and 
lodging  that  night;  for  I  feared  I  could  not 
reach  my  journey's  end  that  day. 

"  Oh ! "  said  the  woman,  "  I  don't  mean  to 
charge  you  anything.  You  are  very  welcome 
to  what  I  have." 

That  was  the  most  refreshing  lunch  I  ever 
remember  eating.  I  had  eaten  very  little  since 
leaving  home  two  days  before,  and  had  spent  for 
stage  fare,  express  package,  and  so  on,  all  but 
twenty-eight  cents  of  the  three  dollars  given 
me  by  father's  hired  man.  I  pushed  on  more 


'JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

briskly,  half  hoping  I  might  reach  my  destina- 
tion before  dark.  But  when  night  came  it  was 
very  dark.  I  was  three  or  four  miles  from  the 
end  of  my  journey,  and  the  remainder  of  the 
road  was  very  dim  and  through  high  prairie 
grass.  I  had  walked  over  forty  miles  and  was 
about  exhausted.  There  was  a  cabin  of  round 
logs  in  a  little  grove  on  the  prairie.  It  was  a 
few  miles  northwest  of  where  Pana  now  stands. 
There  was  a  lone  woman  in  the  cabin.  I  asked 
her  if  I  might  stay  over  night. 

"  I  don't  like,"  she  said,  "  to  turn  away 
strangers  this  dark  night,  but  my  old  man  went 
hunting  and  has  not  got  back." 

I  pleaded  with  her  to  just  give  me  shelter  till 
daybreak. 

"Well,"  said  she,  "I  haven't  the  heart  to 
turn  you  off  into  the  dark  to  walk  across  that 
prairie.  You  might  be  lost  and  the  wolves  get 
you.  Come  in ! " 

The  husband  came  home  at  a  late  hour  with 
some  venison,  for  he  had  killed  a  deer.  Early 
next  morning  we  had  breakfast  of  hard,  fried 
venison,  corn  bread  and  milk. 

"  Now,  what  do  I  owe  you  ?  "  I  inquired  of  the 
man. 

"  Oh,"  said  he,  "  we  never  charge  strangers." 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

But  I  insisted  on  paying  him  something. 

"  Well,  then,  if  you  are  a  mind  to,  you  may 
give  the  old  woman  a  bit." 

That  meant  a  silver  piece  of  twelve  and  one- 
half  cents.  I  had  only  a  twenty-five-cent  piece 
and  a  three-cent  piece.  When  I  handed  the 
woman  the  twenty-five-cent  piece,  they  both  ex- 
claimed, "  Oh,  we  haven't  any  change,  just  keep 
your  money,  and  sometime  when  you  are  passing 
this  way,  you  may  hand  us  the  change." 

But  I  insisted  that  they  should  take  the  twen- 
ty-five cents  and  I  would  wait  for  the  change 
until  I  came  that  way  again.  They  consented. 
I  have  never  met  them  since.  I  wish  I  could 
thank  them  afresh  for  their  hospitality.  All  I 
had  in  the  world  was  the  clothes  I  wore,  the  three- 
cent  piece,  and  the  box  of  books.  I  carried  the 
three-cent  piece  in  my  pocket  for  nearly  thirty 
years  as  a  precious  memento,  and  an  incentive  to 
economy.  I  finally  lost  it,  but  the  grateful 
memories  associated  with  it  grow  more  and  more 
green  as  the  years  roll  on. 

I  soon  arrived  on  the  railroad  line  at  the  head- 
quarters of  the  man  for  whom  I  was  to  work. 
It  was  a  short  distance  south  of  where  the  city  of 
Pana  has  since  been  built.  The  man's  wife  and 
daughter  did  the  cooking.  The  boarders  were 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

mostly  Irishmen.  I  went  to  work  with  them. 
When  Sunday  came,  all  put  on  clean  shirts  but 
me.  I  had  no  change  of  clothes,  nor  money  to 
buy  any.  But  there  was  a  stream  of  water  near 
by.  I  thought  I  must  get  clean  somehow.  The 
sun  shone  warm  toward  noon  in  a  sand-bank  on 
the  north  side  of  the  stream,  and  there  was  a 
grove  of  willows  on  the  north  side  of  the  sand- 
bank. I  washed  my  shirt  and  hung  it  upon  the 
willows  to  dry  while  I  sat  on  the  sunny  sand-bank 
and  kept  a  sharp  lookout  ready  to  jump  and  hide 
in  the  willows  if  any  one  came  along.  The  shirt 
was  dried,  but  badly  wrinkled. 

At  supper  time  the  good  woman  said  to  me, 
"  What  in  the  world  is  the  matter  with  your 
shirt?" 

I  had  to  tell  her. 

"  Lawsee  me !  My  dear  child,"  she  exclaimed, 
"  why  didn't  you  tell  me  you  had  no  change  ? 
Now,  I  must  make  you  a  shirt  this  very  night, 
and  Sally  must  help,  if  it  is  Sunday." 

Sally  was  her  young  daughter.  So  she  and 
her  daughter  sat  up  that  night,  made  the  gar- 
ment, and  washed  and  ironed  it  ready  for  me 
Monday  morning. 

The  five  weeks  I  was  with  that  family  at  their 
shanty  of  a  boarding  house  on  the  prairie,  I  was 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

treated  as  if  I  were  kith  and  kin.  Thirty  years 
passed  and  I  had  not  seen  the  mother  who  made 
that  shirt  for  me.  Then  I  went  one  Sunday  to 
preach  in  a  school-house  in  a  remote  district  of 
Illinois,  and  there  I  recognized  seated  before  me 
in  the  meeting  that  same  little  bow-legged  man 
who  hired  me  on  the  streets  of  Springfield  and 
his  wife  who  was  so  kind  to  the  runaway  boy. 
I  must  go  home  with  them  for  dinner.  It  was 
like  a  communion  service  of  happy  and  grateful 
recollections. 

I  drove  the  oxen  with  the  scraper  the  first 
month.  I  worked  with  the  Irishmen  and  we  had 
a  good  time  reading  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  in 
the  shade  at  the  noon  hour,  and  I  also  experi- 
mented on  them  with  my  phrenological  bust. 
But  I  thought  I  could  make  more  and  be  more 
independent  by  taking  a  contract  for  a  job  of 
shoveling  dirt  at  so  much  per  yard.  Before  I 
had  finished  this  job,  I  spied  a  covered  wagon 
coming  across  the  prairie.  A  large,  tall  man 
was  walking  ahead  of  it.  The  man  was  my 
grandfather  Douthit.  My  father  was  driving 
the  wagon.  They  had  been  with  another  load 
of  silver  and  gold  to  Springfield,  and  had  some- 
how got  track  of  me.  Grandfather  told  me  that 
mother  was  greatly  distressed  about  me.  Father 
[  35  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

wanted  me  to  go  home  for  her  sake,  and  he 
promised  that  if  I  would  go  and  help  make  an- 
other crop,  I  should  go  to  school  the  next  fall 
at  the  new  Academy  that  was  then  being  built 
in  Shelbyville.  I  said  I  must  finish  my  contract 
at  grading  first,  and  then  I  would  go  home,  and 
I  did.  But  I  could  not  enter  the  Academy  for 
nearly  a  year  afterwards.  That  was  in  the 
spring  of  1854. 

I  was  very  kindly  received  by  the  good  prin- 
cipal, Charles  W.  Jerome,  and  his  assistants. 
The  school  was  founded  and  conducted  under 
Methodist  auspices;  but  in  a  liberal  Christian 
spirit.  There  was  no  sectarianism  or  bigotry 
about  it  to  hurt  any  of  us.  It  stood  for  clean 
habits,  no  liquor  and  no  tobacco,  nor  any- 
thing that  defiled.  The  daily  morning  reading 
of  the  Bible,  with  prayer  and  song,  are  among 
the  most  precious  and  blessed  memories  of  my 
life.  Principal  Jerome  is  now  living  in  Atlanta, 
Georgia,  over  eighty  years  of  age.  While  a 
zealous  Methodist,  he  has  been  a  constant  and 
helpful  friend  to  me  in  the  mission  of  my  life. 

Principal  Jerome  permitted  me  to  occupy  a 
little  room  in  the  seminary  building  where  I 
slept  and  boarded  myself,  with  the  help  my 
[  36  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

mother  could  give.  I  earned  my  tuition  acting 
as  janitor.  I  also  earned  something  as  book- 
agent.  I  sold  Fowler  &  Wells's  publications, 
especially  those  written  by  Rev.  G.  S.  Weaver. 
One  of  his  books  was  entitled  "  Hopes  and  Helps 
for  the  Young."  My  first  piece  committed  to 
memory  and  declaimed  in  school  was  from  that 
book.  The  subject  was  "  Perseverance."  The 
piece  closed  with  Longfellow's  "Psalm  of  Life." 
That  book  was  a  favorite  with  many  of  the  stu- 
dents. I  was  surprised  to  learn  in  after  years 
that  the  author  was  a  Universalist  minister.  Dr. 
Weaver  is  still  living,  or  was  a  few  weeks  ago, 
— 1908, — about  ninety  years  of  age,  at  Canton, 
New  York,  the  seat  of  the  Universalist  Divinity 
School.  He  has  been  very  kind  to  me,  and  often 
writes  me  words  of  hearty  sympathy  and  good 
cheer. 

During  my  attendance  at  the  Shelby  Acad- 
emy, I  also  taught  a  subscription  school  in 
arithmetic  and  writing.  This  school  was  held 
on  Friday  evenings  and  Saturdays  and  Sundays. 
People  who  try  to  read  my  scrawls  now  laugh 
skeptically  when  they  learn  that  the  writer  was 
once  a  teacher  of  penmanship.  The  school  was 
ten  miles  from  Shelbyville.  I  walked  to  it  over 
[  37  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

muddy  roads.  Sometimes  I  had  to  wade  waist 
deep  through  cold  water,  across  swollen  streams, 
to  meet  the  appointments. 

The  hired  man  who  loaned  me  the  three  dol- 
lars when  I  first  left  home  was  as  good  as  his 
word.  While  I  was  at  the  Academy  he  would 
come  to  Shelbyville  and,  when  sober,  would 
come  to  the  school  door  and  ask  for  "  Jack  " 
Douthit,  as  I  was  then  called.  I  would  have  to 
go  to  the  door,  for  he  was  diffident  about  com- 
ing in.  Then  he  would  ask  how  I  was  getting 
along,  and  if  I  needed  some  more  cash,  and  would 
insist  on  loaning  it  to  me,  saying :  "  Never 
mind,  if  you  never  pay  it.  I'm  a  sinner  and 
never  had  any  larnin,  but  I  want  you  to  be 
lamed.  Maybe  you'll  be  President  some  day." 
When  I  left  school  I  owed  him  twenty-five  dol- 
lars or  more.  It  seemed  a  big  sum,  but  I  paid 
it,  though  he  insisted  in  after  years  in  helping 
me  more.  He  would  say :  "  If  I  don't  let  you 
have  it,  I  will  spend  it  for  drink."  During  the 
Civil  War  he  was  in  prison  for  a  long  time  near 
the  home  of  his  own  people  in  the  state  of  Ten- 
nessee. I  wanted  to  visit  him  to  help  him  to 
liberty,  but  could  not.  When  he  escaped  from 
the  prison  he  came  to  see  me  by  night.  He  had 
got  into  a  spree  on  the  way  and  had  been  in  the 
[  38  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

calaboose,  for  he  was  riotous  and  dangerous 
when  drinking.  He  was  feeling  very  badly  and 
suffering  intense  remorse.  He  asked  me  to  pray 
God  to  forgive  him,  and  vowed  he  would  drink 
no  more.  He  then  went  back  to  his  people  in 
Tennessee,  and  his  enemies  stole  upon  him  at 
night  when  he  was  in  bed,  suffering  with  wounds, 
and  shot  him  to  death.  Dear,  faithful  old 
friend!  I  would  rather  meet  your  fate  in  the 
Great  Hereafter  than  that  of  the  fellows  who 
for  your  vote  or  your  money  tempted  you  to 
ruin. 

After  two  terms  at  the  Academy,  I  was  en- 
gaged to  teach  in  the  primary  department. 
After  one  year  as  teacher  I  resolved  to  go  and 
work  my  way,  if  possible,  through  Antioch 
College  at  Yellow  Springs,  Ohio,  for  I  had  read 
of  Horace  Mann,  the  President,  and  I  longed 
to  be  seated  at  the  feet  of  the  man  whom  I  had 
learned  to  love  without  seeing.  But  there  were 
good,  pious  people  who  sincerely  believed  that 
Antioch  College  was  an  infidel  institution  and 
that  its  President  was  a  dangerous  man,  leading 
young  people  astray.  Many  young  men  and 
women  were  kept  in  that  way  from  being  blessed 
by  that  great  educator,  statesman  and  philan- 
thropist. I  heard  that  I  might  have  a  chance 
[  39  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

to  pay  my  way  through  Antioch  College  by 
manual  labor  and  I  started  for  Yellow  Springs 
in  the  fall  of  1856. 

On  leaving  Shelbyville  my  good  Methodist 
pastor  gave  me  a  note  of  introduction  to  Dr. 
Curry,  President  of  Asbury  University,  (now 
DePauw),  Greencastle,  Indiana.  I  stopped 
over  and  called  on  President  Curry.  He  re- 
ceived me  kindly  and  urged  me  to  remain  and  go 
to  school  there,  and  he  would  give  me  a  chance 
to  work  my  way  in  part.  While  seated  in  the 
depot,  feeling  very  lonely  and  thinking  of  Dr. 
Curry's  proposal,  a  woman  with  a  sunny,  moth- 
erly face  approached  me  and  spoke  to  me  kindly, 
and  then  called  her  husband  and  introduced  him. 
The  gentleman  was  Professor  Butler  of  Wabash 
College.  He  was  a  cousin  of  Mrs.  Lydia  Sigour- 
ney,  the  author  and  poet.  To  their  inquiries  I 
told  them  where  I  was  going.  They  said  I  had 
better  go  to  Wabash  College  at  Crawfordsville, 
Indiana,  which  was  only  thirty  miles  distant. 
They  promised  to  get  me  a  chance  to  work  my 
way  there  and  they  would  be  good  friends  to  me. 
I  was  charmed  by  their  kindness,  and  next  day 
walked  to  Crawfordsville.  I  was  given  a  room 
in  the  college,  where  I  worked  and  boarded  my- 
,self,  mostly  on  baked  potatoes  and  graham 
[  40  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

bread  and  milk,  for  six  months.  The  diet  was 
wholesome,  but  studying  hard  and  eating  alone 
was  not  favorable  to  good  digestion.  I  became 
miserably  homesick.  President  White  and  Pro- 
fessors Hovey,  Hadley  and  Butler  were  very 
kind  to  me.  They  said  I  might  go  home  for  a 
visit;  and,  if  I  would  return  to  complete  some 
studies,  they  would  have  me  sent  to  Lane  Theo- 
logical Seminary,  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  to  prepare 
for  the  ministry.  I  accepted  the  offer  on  condi- 
tion that  I  would  not  be  obliged  to  enter  the  min- 
istry of  any  particular  sect.  Now  my  father 
was  strongly  opposed  to  my  being  an  educated 
minister.  He  thought  I  would  make  a  better 
stock  dealer  or  merchant.  When  he  learned 
that  they  were  going  to  make  a  preacher  of  me, 
he  offered  to  furnish  means  to  establish  me  in  the 
book  and  drug  business,  if  I  would  stop  going 
to  school.  I  yielded  to  the  temptation,  and  so 
dealt  in  books  and  drugs  for  a  year.  But  I  still 
wanted  to  be  a  preacher. 


IV 


One  cause  of  my  homesickness  and  nervous 
dyspepsia  at  Wabash  was  the  want  of  female 
society,  —  a  want  that  would  have  been  gratified 
at  Antioch  College,  for  that  was  the  only  col- 
lege then  in  the  country,  unless  it  was  Oberlin, 
that  stood  for  the  co-education  of  the  sexes.  I 
had  mother,  sisters,  aunts  and  cousins  at  home, 
in  the  district  school  and  at  "  Shelby  Male  and 
Female  Academy,"  as  the  seminary  was  first 
called;  but  at  Wabash  College  I  became  ac- 
quainted with  no  woman  except  the  one  who 
baked  graham  bread  for  me.  I  was  too  diffi- 
dent, and  could  not  dress  well  enough  to  culti- 
vate acquaintances.  In  my  extreme  loneliness  I 
took  consolation  in  correspondence.  By  a  sort 
of  romantic  "  happen  so,"  as  some  would  call  it, 
though  I  prefer  to  think  of  it  as  a  special  Prov- 
idence, I  got  into  correspondence  with  Miss 
Emily  Lovell  of  East  Abington,  Mass.  I  had 
never  met  her  —  I  had  only  read  some  of  her 
verses  in  print,  and  I  felt  drawn  toward  her,  so 
that  I  was  encouraged  to  tell  her  frankly  about 

C  **  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

myself,  my  ambitions,  and  the  noted  people  and 
authors  I  liked,  among  whom  were  Longfellow, 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  Horace  Mann,  Mrs. 
Stowe,  Dr.  Geo.  S.  Weaver,  author  of  "  Hopes 
and  Helps  for  the  Young,"  "  The  Two  Ways  of 
Life  "  and  other  books  published  by  Fowler  & 
Wells,  for  whom  I  had  been  acting  as  agent. 
Miss  Lovell  promptly  responded  to  say  that  my 
favorite  authors  and  people  were  hers  also.  We 
told  each  other  frankly  about  our  families,  our 
yearnings  to  be  good  and  to  do  good.  She  told 
me  how  intensely  interested  she  had  been  in  read- 
ing the  life  of  Mrs.  Sarah  Edgarton  Mayo, — 
first  wife  of  the  late  Rev.  A.  D.  Mayo,  D.D., 
and  "  The  Lives  of  the  Three  Mrs.  Judsons." 
She  was  enthusiastic  to  be  a  missionary.  She 
wrote  me  verses  about  hearing  music  from  the 
throne  of  God  and  seeing  a  magic  hand  reached 
out  to  clasp  hers  in  life's  journey.  She  wrote 
me  a  prayer  in  verse,  of  which  the  closing  stanza 
is  as  follows : 

"  Guide  Thou  my  deeds ! 
Teach  me,  O  Lord,  how  rightly  to  discern 

The  wants  my  humble  means  may  well  supply; 
I've  gathered  roses,  and  I  fain  would  turn 
Upon  another's  brow  their  grace  to  lie. 
The  wine  of  life  with  willing  hands  I'd  serve 
[  43  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

To  needy  objects;  Father!  can  it  be? 
With   heaven-born   strength   wilt   Thou  my   spirit 

nerve, 
And  guide  my  deeds  that  they  may  honor  Thee." 

I  proposed  that  we  send  our  ambrotypes  to 
Professor  L.  N.  Fowler  and  let  him  decide  our 
fitness  for  each  other.  He  made  a  remarkably 
accurate  "  hit "  when  he  said  the  woman  would 
be  a  better  wife  for  me  than  I  could  be  husband 
for  her. 

"  The  young  lady,"  he  said,  "  is  of  high 
moral  character,  and  she  is  talented,  domestic, 
affable,  playful  and  very  affectionate ;  but  she 
is  a  timid  sensitive  soul,  and  it  would  nearly 
kill  her  to  be  scolded.  However,  if  you  make  up 
your  mind  to  be  largely  guided  by  her  counsel 
and  conform  to  her  nature,  you  can  spend  a 
happy,  useful  and  mutually  helpful  life  to- 
gether." 

I  was  very  unhappy  to  think  myself  not 
worthy  of  such  a  talented,  pure,  lovely  woman. 
I  told  her  the  worst  faults  which  Prof.  Fowler 
mentioned,  namely,  my  impulsive  temper  and 
self-will.  I  felt  that  I  ought  to  give  up  the  idea 
of  wedding  one  so  good.  All  the  same,  when  we 
finally  met,  she  said  she  would  take  the  risk. 

We  were  married  at  East  Abington,  (now 
[  44  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

Rockland)  Mass.,  November  2,  1857,  by  Rev. 
Varnum  Lincoln,  the  Universalist  minister.  She 
was  a  native  of  that  place,  and  her  parents  were 
natives  of  that  vicinity.  Her  grandfather 
Lovell  was  a  soldier  of  the  Revolution,  and 
fought  at  Bunker  Hill.  General  Solomon 
Lovell,  he  who  during  the  Revolutionary  War 
led  the  Penobscot  Expedition,  and  my  wife's 
people  have  a  common  ancestry. 

My  wife  in  her  girlhood  attended  Mt.  Caesar 
Seminary,  Keene,  New  Hampshire.  In  early 
life  she  contributed  verses  and  stories  to  such 
periodicals  as  the  Universalist  Ladies  Monthly 
Magazine  and  the  New  York  Evening  Post, 
when  the  latter  was  edited  by  William  Cullen 
Bryant.  For  several  years  during  our  mission 
work,  besides  attention  to  household  duties,  she 
gave  lessons  to  young  people  in  Latin  and 
French  and  taught  subscription  schools.  In 
the  beginning  of  my  ministry,  especially  when 
I  was  disabled,  she  would  write  the  sermons  for 
me  to  preach.  To  this  woman,  under  God,  I 
owe  most  of  what  I  have  been  and  what  I  have 
done  of  good  for  nearly  fifty  years ;  and  our 
children,  two  sons  and  two  daughters,  have  been 
constantly  co-workers  with  us.  Winifred,  our 
youngest  daughter  and  my  housekeeper  now, 
C  45  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

came  as  a  Christmas  gift  when  the  mother  was 
busy  preparing  for  the  first  Christmas  tree  I 
ever  saw,  and  the  first  in  this  county,  so  far  as 
I  know.  It  was  for  the  Sunday-school  at 
Log  Church  on  Christmas  Eve,  1871 ;  and  from 
the  time  that  child  was  old  enough  to  be  carried 
to  church  and  Sunday-school,  she  has  never  to 
this  day  missed  weekly  attendance  at  church  and 
Sunday-school,  excepting  probably  a  half  dozen 
times,  and  then  only  on  account  of  illness.  For 
many  years  she  has  been  a  constant  Sunday- 
school  teacher. 

Our  youngest  son,  Robert  Collyer,  is  pastor 
of  the  Unitarian  Church,  Castine,  Me.  George 
Lovell,  our  eldest  son,  has  been  a  constant  helper 
in  church  work,  besides  acting  as  business  man- 
ager for  Our  Best  Words  and  for  Post-office 
Mission  and  Lithia  Springs  Chautauqua.  I 
could  not  manage  the  Chautauqua  without  such 
a  helper.  Our  eldest  daughter,  Helen,  wife  of 
Mr.  Joseph  W.  Garis,  a  railroad  employee,  lives 
at  Lake  Geneva,  Wis.,  and  has  ever  been  a  most 
faithful  and  cheerful  helper. 

After  our  marriage,  my  wife  and  I  had  charge 

of  the  public  schools  at  Hillsboro,  111.,  for  the 

year  1858,  and  then  we  returned  to  East  Abing- 

ton,  Mass.     At  Hillsboro  I  saw  Abraham  Lin- 

[  46  ] 


EMILY   LOVELL   DOUTHIT 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

coin  for  the  last  time,  and  heard  him  speak  at  the 
time  of  the  famous  debate  with  Senator  Doug- 
las, in  1858.  He  spoke  in  a  circus  tent  at  Hills- 
boro.  I  see  him  now  as  he  walked  into  the  tent 
at  the  farther  end  from  where  I  was  seated. 
His  trousers  were  baggy  at  the  knees,  and  he 
looked  like  some  ungainly  giant.  A  crowd  was 
around  him,  but  he  seemed  a  head  taller  than  the 
rest.  He  and  Douglas  did  not  actually  meet 
there.  Douglas  had  visited  Hillsboro  a  few 
days  before  and  made  his  speech  to  an  immense 
crowd  out  in  a  grove,  for  the  weather  was  fair. 
The  day  appointed  for  Lincoln  threatened  rain, 
so  that  the  circus  tent  was  engaged  for  him.  He 
had  spoken  but  a  little  while  when  the  rain 
poured  down  in  torrents  and  drove  the  people 
off  their  seats  to  stand  close  around  the  speaker's 
stand  in  the  middle  of  the  tent.  Some  one  sug- 
gested that  they  stop  the  meeting  till  the  rain 
was  over,  but  the  crowd  cried :  "  Oh !  no.  Go 
on,  go  on !  "  Lincoln  did  "  go  on  "  for  nearly 
two  hours,  and  the  people  kept  crowding  closer 
and  closer  to  him  as  if  they  were  hypnotized. 
Mr.  Lincoln  seemed  to  me  to  grow  taller  and  his 
face  became  more  radiant  the  longer  he  spoke. 
I  remember  what  he  said  of  Senator  Douglas's 
theory  of  "  Popular  Sovereignty,"  that  is,  the 
[  47  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

right  of  the  people  to  vote  slavery  up  or  down 
in  the  territories.  "  The  fact  is,"  said  Lincoln, 
"  Judge  Douglas's  theory  of  popular  sover- 
eignty seems  to  me  about  as  thin  as  the  soup 
made  from  the  shadow  of  a  starved  pigeon." 
In  the  same  speech  I  remember  his  saying: 
"  There  is  an  honest  old  man  down  in  Georgia  by 
the  name  of  Toombs.  He  boasts  that  he  will  call 
the  roll  of  his  slaves  at  the  foot  of  Bunker  Hill 
Monument.  Dear  fellow,  he  little  knows  the 
temper  of  the  Northern  people  upon  the  subject 
of  slavery,  or  he  would  never  make  such  a  boast 
as  that." 

Up  to  the  time  I  heard  that  speech  of  Lin- 
coln's I  had  been  a  Douglas  Democrat,  though 
opposed  to  slavery  and  an  advocate  of  total  ab- 
stinence. But  when  Senator  Douglas  spoke  in 
Hillsboro  they  made  a  banquet  for  him  at  night 
where  wine  and  whiskey  flowed  shamefully. 
When  Lincoln  came,  his  friends  proposed  a  ban- 
quet for  him,  and  were  going  to  have  liquors, 
But  Lincoln  protested.  He  said  his  friends 
would  please  him  best  if  they  furnished  no  drinks 
that  would  intoxicate,  and  they  obeyed  him. 
From  that  time  I  was  a  convert  to  Lincoln,  and 
would  have  died  in  his  stead.  I  wept  at  his 
death  as  if  he  had  been  my  best  friend  on  earth. 
[  48  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

Then  I  solemnly  vowed  that  I  would  henceforth 
live  to  keep  his  memory  green,  taking  for  my 
motto  his  memorable  words,  "  With  malice  to- 
ward none  and  charity  for  all,  with  firmness  in 
the  right  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us 
finish  the  work  that  is  given  us  to  do." 

I  have  tried  to  keep  that  motto  at  the  head  of 
a  column  of  my  missionary  publication,  Our  Best 
Words,  for  nearly  thirty  years. 

I  have  a  clear  recollection  of  Lincoln,  as  I  first 
used  to  see  him  in  the  old  hotel  across  the  street 
from  the  court-house  where  he  stopped  during 
the  terms  of  the  circuit  court  in  Shelbyville.  I 
see  the  Great  Commoner  as  he  sat  on  the  porch, 
southern  fashion,  when  court  was  not  in  ses- 
sion, his  long,  lank  limbs  doubled  up,  or  straight- 
ened out  with  feet  propped  up,  while  he  read  the 
paper  or  a  book,  or  chatted  familiarly  with  the 
old  farmers  or  his  fellow  attorneys.  He  never 
told  a  story  just  for  the  story  alone,  but  always 
to  clinch  an  argument. 

I  heard  him  make  a  speech  in  the  old  court- 
house in  Shelbyville,  in  which  he  gave  his  reasons 
for  breaking  from  the  old  Whig  party  and  help- 
ing to  organize  the  Free  Soil,  or  Republican 
party.  There  was  a  very  intense  partisan  spirit 
in  those  days  in  southern  Illinois,  and  the  sym- 
[49  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

pathy  was  nearly  all  with  the  South,  so  that  an 
outspoken  anti-slavery  man  was  considered 
hardly  human.  Politicians  were  accustomed  to 
indulge  in  personal  abuse  and  ridicule  of  their 
opponents,  and  so  did  lawyers  in  pleading  in 
court.  Consequently,  when  I  went  with  my 
father,  as  a  boy,  to  the  court-house  to  hear  polit- 
ical speeches  or  the  pleadings  of  lawyers,  I  al- 
ways expected  to  hear  them  hurl  denunciations 
and  abuse  at  their  opponents.  But  on  that  day, 
when  Lincoln  gave  his  reasons  for  leaving  the 
Whig  party,  I  witnessed  a  very  different  scene. 
I  was  surprised  at  the  very  pleasant  manner  and 
kindly  spirit  in  which  Mr.  Lincoln  treated  his 
opponents. 

While  he  spoke,  some  who  had  been  his  as- 
sociates in  the  Whig  party  grew  furious,  inter- 
rupted his  speech,  and  hurled  abusive  epithets  at 
him.  I  wondered  that  he  took  it  all  so  calmly 
and  with  such  self-control.  I  do  not  remember 
any  words  of  that  speech,  I  only  know  that  he 
bore  testimony  against  slavery ;  but  I  shall  never 
forget  how  he  looked  and  the  manner  in  which  he 
spoke  —  how  patient  he  was  toward  his  cross 
critics.  I  went  home  and  told  my  mother  that 
I  had  heard  a  lawyer  and  a  politician  speak  with- 
I  50  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

out  talking  harshly  or  abusing  anybody.     I  had 
never  witnessed  the  like  before  in  my  life. 

Lincoln  came  once  again  to  Shelbyville  to 
make  a  speech  after  the  organization  of  the  Re- 
publican party.  There  were  only  about  half  a 
dozen  persons  in  Shelbyville  and  vicinity  who 
called  themselves  Republicans.  They  invited  Lin- 
coln to  come  to  Shelbyville  and  advertised  him  to 
speak  in  the  court-house.  Most  of  the  old  parti- 
sans turned  the  cold  shoulder  and  said  they  would 
not  go  to  hear  him.  As  the  hour  approached, 
it  seemed  as  if  there  would  be  scarcely  any  one 
present.  Then  a  few  of  the  friends  went  to 
Lincoln  and  said,  "  Let  us  not  try  to  hold  any 
meeting  at  the  court-house  this  time,  but  just 
have  a  little  quiet  caucus  in  the  back  room  of  Mr. 
B.'s  shoe-shop."  To  this  Lincoln  promptly  re- 
plied :  "  Oh !  we  must  go  into  the  court-house  ac- 
cording to  appointment,  no  matter  how  few  may 
come.  We  must  not  seem  ashamed  of  our  prin- 
ciples. They  should  be  proclaimed  from  the 
house-tops  all  over  the  nation." 


UNIVERSITY  Of 


During  the  year  1859  I  was  employed 
part  of  the  time  with  Prof.  D.  P.  Butler  in 
the  branch  office  in  Boston,  of  Fowler  &  Wells, 
phrenologists  and  publishers,  of  New  York  City. 
During  part  of  the  year  I  lectured  on  the  Science 
of  Man  and  the  Laws  of  Health  through  the 
towns  along  the  coast  between  Boston  and  Ply- 
mouth. I  was  religiously  a  wanderer,  yearning 
for  church  fellowship,  but  the  Spiritualists  and 
Abolitionists  were  about  the  only  people  that 
were  making  any  noise,  and  the  only  ones  with 
whom  I  found  any  sympathy.  The  abolition 
orators  were  thundering,  as  on  Sinai,  against  the 
indifference  and  infidelity  of  the  church  in  re- 
gard to  the  national  sin,  African  slavery.  I 
had  become  much  interested  in  psychology  and 
the  phenomena  of  spiritism.  But  none  of  these 
things  satisfied  my  deep  religious  longings. 
Nearly  all  the  public  preaching  I  heard  was  of 
the  tearing  down  sort,  and  I  felt  the  need  of 
reconstruction.  In  other  words,  I  was  in  that 
transition  from  the  old  to  the  new  theology 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

where  hundreds  make  shipwreck  of  faith  for 
want  of  rational  religious  sympathy.  If  it  had 
not  been  for  my  wife's  influence  and  the  read- 
ing of  Beecher's  and  Parker's  sermons  and  pray- 
ers, and  also  now  and  then  newspaper  reports  of 
sermons  of  Drs.  Henry  W.  Bellows  and  James 
Freeman  Clarke,  I  think  I  should  have  become 
an  Ishmaelite  in  religion. 

The  anti-slavery  agitation  caused  me  to  read 
James  Freeman  Clarke's  and  Theodore  Parker's 
sermons  as  reported  in  the  Boston  papers.  I 
would  have  gone  to  hear  Dr.  Clarke  preach  if 
I  could  have  had  the  opportunity.  I  was  drawn 
to  him  because  I  learned  that  he  had  exchanged 
pulpits  with  Theodore  Parker  when  no  other 
preachers  would  do  so.  I  do  not  remember  see- 
ing notices  in  the  papers  of  any  Unitarian 
preaching  other  than  that  of  Parker  and  Clarke. 
I  lectured  in  several  towns  where  there  were  Uni- 
tarian churches,  but,  strange  to  say,  did  not  get 
acquainted  with  any  Unitarians.  I  read  and 
was  thrilled  by  Parker's  sermons  on  "  The  Per- 
manent and  Transient  in  Christianity "  and 
"  The  False  and  True  Revival  of  Religion."  I 
made  an  effort  to  hear  Parker  at  Music  Hall  the 
last  Sunday  he  preached,  before  he  went  to  Italy 
to  die.  I  was  then  staying  sixteen  miles  from 
[  53  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

Boston,  and  I  had  not  money  to  pay  carfare 
to  the  city  and  return,  so  I  resolved  to  walk, 
and  started  early  that  Sunday  morning;  but 
when  I  had  gone  about  half-way  I  grew  faint 
and  turned  back,  to  regret  the  rest  of  my  life 
that  I  did  not  start  the  day  before,  in  order  to 
improve  the  only  opportunity  to  see  and  hear 
the  man  whose  printed  words  had  revived  in  me 
new  life  and  hope.  It  may  be  Dr.  Channing 
would  have  helped  me  as  much  as  Parker;  but 
I  had  no  chance  to  read  him  —  in  fact  I  had 
scarcely  heard  of  him 

While  employed  at  Fowler  and  Wells's  office, 
near  the  Old  South  Meeting-house  in  Boston, 
I  first  saw  Thomas  Starr  King.  He  and  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  were  walking  arm  in  arm  and 
conversing  playfully  with  each  other.  I  got 
into  touch  too  with  William  Lloyd  Garrison 
and  Wendell  Phillips.  One  day  a  compactly 
built  man  with  genial,  ruddy  face  walked  into 
the  office  and  asked  for  a  copy  of  the  Phrenr 
ological  Journal,  paid  for  it,  spoke  a  few  pleas- 
ant words  and  passed  out.  There  was  a  picture 
of  the  man  and  a  description  of  his  character 
in  that  number  of  the  Journal.  The  man  was 
the  Hon.  Henry  Wilson,  the  shoemaker  and 
[  54  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

statesman,  who  was  Vice  President  during  Presi- 
dent Grant's  first  term. 

When  Henry  Wilson  was  on  his  death  bed 
I  read  in  the  papers  that  he  kept  beside  him  a 
little  book  entitled  "Daily  Strength  for  Daily 
Needs,"  being  a  selection  of  scripture,  poetry, 
and  comforting  thoughts  by  sages  and  saints. 
I  secured  a  copy  of  that  book  at  once,  and 
have  kept  it  close  beside  me  ever  since,  at  home 
and  abroad.  When  I  miss  getting  a  morning 
thought  from  the  book,  it  often  seems  as  if  I 
had  failed  to  get  the  needed  key  note  to  the 
day. 

In  the  fall  of  1859  I  came  back  to  Shelby 
County,  and  my  wife  and  I,  now  with  one  child, 
went  to  keeping  house  in  a  little  cabin  on  a 
farm  near  my  birthplace.  The  first  time  I  got 
a  chance  to  speak,  I  declared  myself  an  Abo- 
litionist. I  believe  I  was  the  only  one  the^i  in 
Shelby  County  who  called  himself  an  Abo- 
litionist in  public.  This  shocked  all  of  my 
friends  and  relatives.  It  was  terrible,  they 
thought;  for  in  their  eyes,  an  Abolitionist  was 
a  monster,  and  now  to  think  I  had  married  a 
Yankee  wife  and  turned  Abolitionist!  The 
newspapers  made  a  sensation  of  it.  For  ex- 
[  65  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

ample,  it  was  reported  that,  in  a  Sunday-school 
talk,  I  had  called  John  Brown  a  martyr  and 
compared  him  to  George  Washington.  I  did 
not  say  that,  but  I  did  say  that  we  must  beware 
how  we  judged  those  who  were  unpopular  be- 
cause they  were  a  foe  to  slavery.  I  said  that 
even  Washington  was  unpopular  with  millions 
of  people,  when  he  was  ready  to  die  for  the 
freedom  of  others,  and  that  those  who  die  for 
the  liberty  of  their  fellow-beings  to-day,  may, 
in  the  future  ages,  wear  martyrs'  crowns. 
This  remark  was  quickly  interpreted  as  refer- 
ring to  the  hanging  of  John  Brown,  and  I  was 
called  a  John  Brownite  for  years,  despite  the 
fact  that  I  did  not  at  all  approve  of  his  bloody 
raid  at  Harper's  Ferry,  though  I  did  sym- 
pathize with  and  admire  the  pluck  of  the  old 
hero. 

Practically,  so  far  as  the  local  newspapers 
were  concerned,  there  was  no  free  speech  on 
political  questions  in  those  days  in  southern 
Illinois.  Although  instinctively  hating  African 
slavery,  yet  through  ignorance,  I  gave  my  first 
vote  for  James  Buchanan  for  President,  but  I 
persisted  in  expressing  abolition  sentiments  and 
was  ridiculed  and  laughed  at  for  my  incon- 
sistency. When  my  eyes  were  open  to  see  my 
[  56  ] 


JASPER  BOUTHIT'S  STORY 

folly,  I  tried  to  make  amends,  not  by  allying 
myself  with  any  of  the  existing  parties  but 
by  pleading  for  free  speech  and  fair  play. 
It  was  my  conviction  that  civil  war  might  be 
averted  if  the  questions  at  issue  were  only 
fairly  presented  to  all  the  American  people. 
Light  was  what  was  most  needed;  so  I  thought 
then,  and  I  have  seen  no  reason  to  change  my 
opinion.  But  alas !  the  light  could  only  come 
through  the  lurid  flames  of  devastating  war. 

"  Fair  Play  in  Politics,"  was  the  heading 
of  a  plea  of  a  half  newspaper  column  which  I 
wrote  in  the  early  summer  of  1860  and  sent 
to  the  editor  of  the  Okaw  Democrat  for  pub- 
lication. The  editor  being  a  personal  friend, 
I  had  hopes  of  the  plea  being  admitted.  After 
considerable  squirming,  he  told  me  that  he  would 
be  glad  to  favor  me  in  any  way  that  he  could, 
but  for  the  sake  of  the  party  he  could  not  admit 
my  communication ;  "  and,"  said  he,  "  if  you 
take  any  decided  stand  against  the  old  party, 
I  shall  be  compelled  to  denounce  you  publicly." 
I  did  take  a  decided  stand.  But  there  was  no 
paper  through  which  to  get  my  ideas  before  the 
public  until  the  following  July. 

On  Saturday  morning,  July  28,  1860,  the 
first  number  of  The  Shelby  Freeman  was  pub- 
[  57  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHITS  STORY 

lished  in  Shelbyville.  Mr.  E.  E.  Chittenden, 
a  frail  but  plucky  man,  was  editor.  My  re- 
jected article  was  published  in  the  first  num- 
ber and  I  was  made  associate  editor.  The  Free- 
man advocated  the  election  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
for  President,  and  was  published  weekly  till  he 
was  elected  and  inaugurated  and  the  first  call 
made  for  volunteers  to  suppress  the  rebellion. 
Then  the  editor,  Mr.  Chittenden,  answered  the 
call  and  went  to  the  wuzf  SPJ'  *be  first  newspaper 
in  southern  Illinois  devoted  to  free  soil,  free 
labor  and  free  speech,  died.  In  April,  1863, 
the  press  which  we  had  used  was  bought  by 
John  W.  Johnson,  to  print  The  Shelby  County 
Union. 

I  enlisted  from  Shelby  County  in  the  army  of 
the  Union,  and  went  up  to  the  state  capital 
to  be  examined  and  mustered  in.  I  was  pale- 
faced  and  frail  in  body.  The  examining  sur- 
geon shook  his  head  doubtfully.  I  thought 
about  it  over  night.  I  had  left  my  mother  in 
great  distress  and  my  wife  reluctant  to  have  me 
go.  I  was  the  eldest  son,  the  other  children  were 
still  young,  my  mother  sorely  needed  my 
presence,  and  I  had  promised  to  live  near  her 
as  long  as  she  lived,  which  was  not  expected  to 
be  long.  Several  of  the  friends  with  whom  I 
[  58  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

had  enlisted,  among  them  my  old  teacher, 
Charles  W.  Jerome,  advised  me  to  return  home, 
saying  that  I  could  do  as  much  for  the  cause 
at  home  as  I  could  as  a  soldier.  Therefore  I 
returned,  just  as  determined  to  die  at  home  for 
my  country,  if  exigency  required,  as  if  in  the 
army.  I  lectured  on  the  slavery  question  and 
"  preached  politics "  as  they  said,  although  I 
knew  no  politics  except  "Liberty  and  Union, 
one  and  inseparable." 

In  the  spring  of  1863,  I  got  into  trouble  with 
the  "  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle."  The  real 
object  of  that  order  was  to  resist  the  draft,  and 
secretly  help  the  rebellion,  but  it  appeared  be- 
fore the  public  in  the  guise  of  a  "  Peace  Democ- 
racy." Thus  it  misled  many  well-meaning 
people  and  gave  a  chance  for  bushwhackers  and 
other  emissaries  of  the  confederacy  to  come 
into  southern  Illinois.  One  of  these  came  from 
Missouri  into  our  district.  He  called  himself 
a  preacher.  He  held  meetings  at  Liberty 
Meeting-house.  This  house  had  been  built 
for  the  double  purpose  of  school  and  church, 
in  fact  all  sorts  of  meetings,  for  it  was  the  only 
house  where  public  meetings  could  be  held  in 
that  district;  and  I  had  stipulated  when  soli- 
citing funds  to  build  it,  that  it  should  be  always 
[  59  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

open  to  the  community  and  sacred  to  free 
speech.  A  lodge  of  the  "  Knights  of  the  Gol- 
den Circle  "  was  organized  there  by  the  Mis- 
souri bushwhacker,  and  a  score  or  more  of  my 
neighbors  joined  it.  Besides  secret  sessions,  the 
lodge  held  open  meetings,  to  which  everybody 
was  welcome.  In  these  meetings  peace  and 
union  were  talked. 

I  went  to  a  meeting  of  the  Circle  and  begged 
for  the  privilege  of  speaking  in  behalf  of  peace 
and  good-will  among  neighbors.  The  Missouri 
man  was  presiding.  I  arose  and  said :  "  Mr. 
Chairman:  I  am  glad  to  hear  that  this  is  a 
Democratic  peace  meeting.  I  believe  in  peace 
and  true  democracy.  Therefore,  I  beg  leave 
to  occupy  ten  minutes  or  less  in  reading  a  letter 
from  a  brave  and  patriotic  Democrat,  Major 
General  Rosecrans,  and  also  a  short  article  from 
the  Chicago  Times,  the  leading  Democratic 
organ  of  Illinois," —  these  authorities  both  con- 
demned the  Golden  Circle  organizations,  — 
"  Can  I  have  the  privilege?  " 

The  chairman  replied  that  the  meeting  was  a 
Democratic  love  feast  and  a  private  affair  for 
the  purpose  of  reorganizing  the  good  old  Dem- 
ocratic party,  that  I  could  not  be  allowed  to 
speak  or  read  anything,  and  that  if  I  was  keen 
[  60  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

to  exercise  free  speech  I  could  "  go  out  to  the 
brush  and  bellow  forth."  To  the  credit  of  the 
majority  in  that  meeting,  be  it  said,  the  chair- 
man was  censured  for  the  summary  way  in  which 
I  was  refused  a  hearing.  Then,  after  I  was  put 
out,  was  held  the  secret  session  in  which  the  so- 
called  preacher  and  bushwhacker  made  a  rousing 
speech.  He  said :  "  Had  it  not  been  for  such 
weak-kneed  cowardly  traitors  (the  Douglas 
Democrats)  we  should  have  had  the  tyrant 
Lincoln  dethroned  long  ago,  yea,  verily,  and 
beheaded.  I  tell  you  we  must  prepare  to  fight. 
Clean  out  your  old  guns  and  get  ready.  If 
you  have  no  gun,  go  up  north  and  press  one, 
and  while  you  are  there  press  a  horse  and  am- 
munition. If  we  can't  fight  on  a  large  scale,  we 
can  bushwhack  it.  If  you  don't  know  how,  I 
can  teach  you.  I  have  had  some  experience  in 
bushwhacking  myself." 

My  younger  brother,  George,  who  was  not 
known  to  the  chairman  and  was  so  very  quiet 
and  sleepy-looking  that  night  that  he  was 
scarcely  noticed  in  the  noisy  crowd,  was  not 
put  out.  This  brother  had  an  excellent  mem- 
ory, and  reported  that  speech  word  for  word. 
I  wrote  out  an  account  of  this  meeting  and  ex- 
tracts from  the  speeches,  and  I  took  it  to  the 
[  61  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

only  newspaper  then  printed  in  the  county.     It 
was   rejected,   not  because   its   correctness   was 
questioned,  but  because  the  press  of  the  county 
was  then  intensely  partisan,  and  the  editor  said 
it  would  never  do  to  publish  such  a  report.     It 
would   create  discord  in   the  party   and  make 
votes    for   the   "  black    Republicans."     I    then 
sent  the  report  to  the  St.  Louis  Democrat,  the 
Republican  daily  most  widely  read  in  this  part 
of  Illinois  at  that  time.     On  Thursday,  March 
19,   1863,  it  appeared  in  that  paper  on   the 
first  page  under  flaming  headlines  that  startled 
the  country.     Here  at  home  the  excitement  was 
intense.     It  was  as  if  a  bombshell  had  burst, 
and  somebody  must  surely  get  hurt  or  leave  for 
other  parts  in  a  hurry.     Several  of  those  who 
heard  the  speech  of  the  confessed  bushwhacker 
acknowledged  that   it   was    correctly   reported. 
I  learned  years  afterwards  that  all  concerned 
in  that  "  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle  "  meeting 
held  a  council  over  my  report.     They  all  agreed 
that  I  had  "  got  it  mighty  korect " ;  but  the 
question  was,  how  I  got  it.     Some  suspected  a 
traitor  in  camp,  but  most  of  them  thought  that 
after  they  had  voted  me  "  down  and  out "  that 
night,  I  had  climbed  through  the  house  roof 
and  witnessed  the   whole   proceedings   through 
[  62  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

the  scuttle-hole  in  the  loft.     They   never  sus- 
pected my  young  brother. 

It  was  hot  times  for  me  for  a  while.  Reso- 
lutions were  passed  and  vigilance  committees 
were  appointed  to  warn  me,  and  as  a  last  resort 
to  threaten  that  if  I  did  not  desist  reporting 
names  and  speeches  for  public  print  I  should 
be  treated  as  a  spy.  I  was  so  stubborn  that 
no  doubt  the  reader  would  have  been  spared 
these  reminiscences  but  for  the  fact  that  my 
father  and  mother  and  a  large  number  of  my 
kindred  who,  though  grieved  at  my  outspoken- 
ness, strongly  resented  any  violent  treatment 
of  me.  As  for  the  bushwhacker  and  his  victims, 
it  seemed  that  the  only  way  they  could  remain, 
in  the  locality  and  save  themselves  from  arrest 
by  government  officials  was  to  deny  my  report 
and  publish  a  libel  on  me.  The  bushwhacker 
therefore  prepared  a  manifesto,  vindicating 
himself  as  a  very  honorable  and  peaceable 
gentleman,  stating  that  he  had  never  uttered  the 
words  reported  of  him  in  the  daily  papers,  and 
that  the  secret  conference,  held  at  Liberty 
Meeting-house,  was  in  the  interest  of  peace  and 
harmony  among  neighbors;  and  adding  that 
Jasper  Douthit  was  a  notorious  blood-thirsty 
Abolitionist,  a  stirrer  up  of  strife  among  other- 
[  63  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

wise  peaceable  neighbors.  Then,  to  induce 
others  to  sign  that  manifesto,  the  bushwhacker 
told  them  he  knew  that  the  "  black-hearted  Abe 
Lincoln  "  had  sent  me  a  lot  of  government  arms 
and  ammunition  which  I  had  secreted  in  my 
house  on  the  prairie,  eight  miles  from  Shelby- 
ville.  He  induced  nine  of  my  neighbors  to 
sign  this  statement  and  it  was  published  in  the 
Okaw  Patriot  of  June  12,  1863. 

The  manifesto  extolled  the  bushwhacker  as  "  a 
fine  school-teacher,  a  gentleman,  patriot  and 
peacemaker,"  declared  my  report  of  the  meeting 
false  and  libelous,  and  continued  as  follows: 

"  With  a  brief  history  of  the  author  of  the 
article  in  the  Democrat,  we  close.  He  is  the  son 
of  a  respectable  Democrat  citizen  of  the  neigh- 
borhood. In  his  better  days  he  went  to  Boston 
to  attend  school  and  received  a  stroke  of  negro- 
phobia  which  fractured  his  brain.  He  is  a 
man  of  small  calibre.  He  is  regarded  by  those 
who  know  him  as  maliciously  dangerous  to  the 
community.  He  pays  homage  to  John  Brown. 
This  Bostonian  Jasper  is  a  breeder  of  sedition, 
and  is  daily  seeking  the  life-blood  of  the  genu- 
ine peace  men  of  our  country.  He  should  be 
cautioned  by  those  who  have  any  influence  over 
him,  if  any  such  there  be,  and  if  he  persists  in 
such  conduct  his  presence  may  become  unen- 
durable." 

[  64  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

Most  of  the  nine  signers  told  me  afterwards 
that  they  had  never  read  the  article  until  It 
appeared  in  print.  All  of  them  abundantly 
atoned  for  that  wrong  which  they  were  led  un- 
wittingly to  do  me.  Some  of  them  later  became 
earnest  members  of  my  congregation  and 
helpers  in  my  work,  and  I  ministered  at  the 
funeral  of  several  of  them.  Only  one  of  the 
nine  is  now  living.  He  is  over  eighty  years 
of  age,  and  his  home  is  in  a  distant  city,  but 
he  wants  to  be  regarded  as  one  of  my  parish- 
ioners and  writes  me  friendly  words  of  good 
cheer.  One  of  the  number  was  converted  at  a 
revival  meeting  one  night  years  after  the  war, 
and  on  the  next  morning  he  mounted  a  horse 
and  rode  five  miles  to  see  me  and  say: 
"  Douthit,  I  was  induced  by  that  Tory  bush- 
whacker to  sign  that  libel  about  you  when  I 
knew  it  was  not  true.  I  have  been  ashamed  of 
it  ever  since,  but  I  could  never  get  courage  to 
ask  your  pardon  until  now.  Will  you  forgive 
me?" 

I  had  already  forgiven  him  and  everybody 
else,  and  I  think  just  then  I  was  the  unhappier 
man  of  the  two,  because  I  could  not  remember 
aught  for  which  to  ask  his  forgiveness. 

In  1864  rumors  were  flying  thick  that  any- 
[  65  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

one  who  attempted  to  take  the  enrollment  for  a 
draft  would  be  shot.  There  were  men  who 
boasted  openly  that  they  would  do  the  mur- 
derous deed.  Bloody  riots  in  resisting  the  en- 
rollment were  of  frequent  occurrence  in  south- 
ern Illinois  and  Indiana.  Several  enrolling  offi- 
cers had  been  shot  down.  All  the  people  seemed 
to  be  walking  on  the  thin  crust  of  a  volcano 
that  was  ready  to  burst  at  any  hour.  "  The 
Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle "  were  drilling 
in  sight  of  my  home  on  the  prairie,  to  resist  the 
"  tyrant  Lincoln,"  as  they  called  him.  I  would 
talk  and  reason  with  some  of  my  neighbors,  but 
many  were  glum  and  mum,  and  would  give  me 
no  chance  to  talk  with  them.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances I  was  appointed  to  take  the  enroll- 
ment in  the  eastern  half  of  the  county.  On  re- 
ceiving my  commission  I  was  offered  a  company, 
or  regiment  of  soldiers,  to  be  stationed  in  the 
county,  but  I  objected  to  their  presence,  because 
I  knew  that  in  the  counties  where  soldiers  were 
present  there  had  been  riot  and  bloodshed.  I 
was  advised  to  start  well  armed,  but  I  declined  to 
do  this.  I  determined  to  do  the  work  peaceably, 
or  die  in  the  attempt.  However,  I  took  the  pre- 
caution to  change  my  hat  and  coat  and  to  ride 
a  different  horse,  from  day  to  day,  as  I  went 
[  66  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

about  the  work.  This  expedient,  with  the  pru- 
dent co-operation  of  friends  in  both  parties, 
probably  saved  one  enrolling  officer  from  assas- 
sination. Years  afterwards  some  persons  con- 
fessed to  me  that  they,  with  others,  had  resolved 
on  shooting  me  if  I  were  seen  near  their  homes. 
"  I  shall  always  be  thankful,"  said  one  man  to 
me,  "  that  we  did  not  know  that  you  were 
around  until  you  had  done  the  work  and  gone." 

My  plan  was  to  go  only  to  those  I  thought 
I  could  trust  and  get  the  names  of  the  others 
from  the  trusty  ones.  This  worked  very  well, 
except  in  a  few  instances  where  I  made  the  mis- 
take of  revealing  myself  to  foes  instead  of 
friends.  Some  had  read  that  bushwhacker's 
libel  in  the  papers  and  they  believed  their  papers 
then  more  than  they  did  their  Bibles.  It  was 
just  such  ignorance  and  partisanship  that  made 
the  Civil  War  possible. 

The  first  morning  I  went  out  to  take  the  en- 
rollment I  went  to  the  house  of  an  old  citizen 
who  had  heard,  for  he  could  not  read,  of  the 
rumors  about  me.  He  was  in  the  field  at  work. 
His  wife  kindly  invited  me  into  the  house  and 
sent  the  children  after  their  father.  He  came, 
walking  fast,  and  as  he  entered  the  room  he 
snatched  a  gun  from  out  the  rack  over  the  door, 
[  67  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHITS  STORY 

and  holding  it  up,  cried  out,  with  some  unquot- 
able expletives :  "  Now  you  get  out  and  go 
home  in  a  hurry,  or  you  will  be  shot ! " 

I  arose  and  replied  as  mildly  as  possible, 
under  the  circumstances,  calling  him  by  name. 
"  If  you  wish  to  shoot  me,  pop  away.  But 
I  don't  want  to  hurt  you,  nor  anyone  else. 
This  is  all  the  weapon  I  carry,"  showing  him 
a  little  pen-knife,  "  but  let  me  tell  you  that  I  am 
not  going  home.  I  am  going  to  do  my  duty 
to  my  country,  and  if  I  am  killed  there  are 
many  thousands  to  take  my  place." 

"  Well,  Jasper,"  said  the  man,  "  I  don't  want 
to  shoot  you  myself.  I  couldn't  do  it,  anyhow, 
for  your  mother's  sake.  She  is  a  good  woman, 
but  I  am  afraid  you  will  be  shot  if  you  don't 
quit." 

One  night  after  this  there  were  a  dozen  shots 
fired  through  the  open  door  of  my  house  about 
midnight.  As  the  last  shot  was  fired  I  walked 
to  the  door  in  my  night-clothes,  but  the  shooters 
dodged  behind  a  hazel-thicket,  and  nobody  was 
hurt.  Until  that  time  I  carried  no  firearms  and 
kept  none  in  the  house,  although  it  was  rumored 
and  believed  by  many  that  I  had  secreted  a  lot  of 
government  arms  in  or  near  my  house.  A  few 
days  after  the  shooting  I  was  in  Shelbyville, 
[  68  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

when  an  old  friend  and  captain  in  the  army, 
who  was  home  on  a  furlough,  persuaded  me  to 
take  home  a  six-shooter  belonging  to  him,  re- 
marking that  it  was  a  duty  that  I  owed  my 
friends  to  use  it  in  self-defense,  if  attacked. 
It  was  loaded  and  I  carried  it  home  and  prac- 
tised with  it  at  an  object  the  size  of  a  man 
about  ten  steps  distant,  until  all  the  barrels  were 
empty.  I  missed  the  object  every  time,  but 
it  was  not  the  fault  of  the  revolver.  Then, 
laughing  at  myself  for  my  folly,  I  laid  the  re- 
volver away  empty  and  made  haste  to  return  it 
to  its  owner  in  good  order.  That  was  the  ex- 
tent of  my  carnal  warfare  during  all  the  "  un- 
pleasantness." 

This  little  incident  would  not  be  worth  men- 
tioning but  for  the  fact  that  at  that  time  I  had 
become  the  "  raw  head  and  bloody  bones  "  of 
the  neighborhood.  Little  children  on  the  road 
would  hide  behind  trees  when  they  saw  me 
coming;  men  would  arm  themselves  to  pass  by 
my  home.  To  those  who  know  me  it  seems 
amusing  now,  but  it  was  serious  then.  It  shows 
how  partisan  demagoguery,  working  on  ignor- 
ance and  prejudice,  can  inaugurate  civil  war 
and  lead  peaceable  and  well-meaning  citizens 
to  shed  each  other's  blood. 
[  69  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

Among  the  many  incidents  that  flood  my 
memory,  illustrative  of  the  ignorance  that  pre- 
vailed, I  will  relate  one  more.  A  person  who 
had  been  to  Shelbyville  and  heard  some  talk 
about  peace  conventions  and  Democratic  vic- 
tories at  elections  in  New  York  and  Indiana 
passed  by  my  house  on  his  way  home,  and  the 
following  conversation  occurred.  The  exact 
words  are  given,  as  I  wrote  them  down  im- 
mediately afterward: 

"Hello,  Douthit!  Have  you  heard  the 
news?  " 

"No,  what  is  it?" 

"  Well,  we're  gwine  to  have  peace ;  we've 
pinted  a  man,  Vallandingham,  to  go  and  see 
Jeff  about  arranging  it,  and,  if  Old  Abe  don't 

give  him  a  free  pass  to ,  where's  the 

place  where  Jeff  Davis  lives  ?  " 

"  Richmond,  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"Oh!  yes;  that's  the  place.  Well,  if  Old 
Abe  don't  give  Vallandingham  a  pass  to  Rich- 
mond, as  I  was  gwine  to  say,  we're  gwine  to 
succeed  (secede)  right  off.  They  say  New 
York  and  Indiana  have  succeeded  already. 
Hurrah  for  Vallandingham  !  " 

Many  are  the  memories  of  encouraging  words 
that  were  whispered  or  spoken  aloud  to  me  in 
[  70  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

hours  of  trial.  About  this  time  I  preached  a 
sermon  on  "  The  True  Path  to  Peace,"  which 
was  printed  in  full  in  the  Shelby  County  Union. 
I  advocated  peace  by  a  vigorous  prosecution 
of  the  inevitable  war  and  by  freedom  for  the 
slaves.  It  was  resolved,  by  several  who  were  op- 
posed to  my  views,  that  I  should  be  summarily 
silenced  if  I  persisted  in  expressing  such  senti- 
ments and  praying  for  the  President  of  the 
United  States.  Accordingly,  one  bright  Sun- 
day morning  at  the  hour  I  had  appointed  for 
services,  a  large  crowd  of  "  peace  Democrats  " 
gathered  in  and  around  the  little  log  school 
house.  They  were  armed  with  shotguns,  rifles, 
revolvers,  bowie-knives,  and  heavy  clubs.  They 
looked  sour  and  surly.  The  congregation 
gathered  and  filled  the  house.  I  did  not  know 
any  of  my  friends  were  armed.  Scarcely  a 
word  was  spoken  by  anyone.  The  time  came  to 
begin  service.  A  deathly  silence  reigned  as  I 
took  my  seat  in  the  pulpit.  Everybody 
seemed  to  be  asking,  "What  next?"  Just 
then  a  quiet,  conversative  man  whom  I  had 
never  known  to  take  any  active  part  in  any 
meetings,  and  whom  I  did  not  know  as  being  in 
sympathy  with  me,  walked  gently  up  the  aisle 
and  drawing  near  to  my  ear,  whispered: 
[  71  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

"  Douthit,  go  on  and  preach  and  pray  as  you 
think  right.  There  are  plenty  of  us  to  stand 
by  you."  I  was  determined  to  speak  my  con- 
victions anyhow,  and  did  clear  my  conscience 
very  well  that  day.  Nevertheless,  I  have 
always  regarded  that  action  of  so  modest  and 
quiet  a  man  as  a  sort  of  special  inspiration. 
I  shall  never  cease  to  remember  with  gratitude 
how  the  best  of  human  nature  as  well  as  the 
worst  showed  itself  in  those  days  of  trial. 


VI 


During  most  of  this  trying  time  I  was 
preaching  without  ordination.  I  can  hardly 
remember  when  I  did  not  feel  "  called  "  to  be 
a  preacher.  When  a  mere  lad  I  felt  so  much 
desire  to  be  a  Christian  that  I  would  gladly 
have  walked  a  long  journey  to  find  a  congre- 
gation that  would  give  me  fellowship  on  my 
simple  confession  of  a  determined  purpose  to 
live  a  Christian  life.  But  all  the  churches  I 
knew  required  much  more  as  conditions  of 
membership,  and  insisted  upon  tes's  very  dif- 
ferent from  what  I  found  in  the  simple  teach- 
ings of  Jesus.  The  churches  would  tell  me  to 
take  the  Bible  as  it  reads  and  follow  Christ,  and 
then  would  insist  on  my  taking  the  Bible  as 
they  read  it,  and  following  their  creeds.  In 
short,  I  must  be  a  slave  to  other  people's 
opinions  about  the  Bible  and  about  Christ.  I 
could  not  honestly  be  that.  Therefore,  for 
many  years  I  was  obliged  to  walk  alone ;  and  I 
would  almost  have  lost  faith  in  all  churches  and 
[  73  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

all  religion  but  for  a  mother's  love  and  saintly 
example. 

When  about  twenty-one  years  old  I  made 
public  confession  of  religion  and  was  baptized, 
kneeling  in  the  waters  of  the  Okaw,  at  Shelby- 
ville.  Rev.  Isaac  Groves,  then  pastor  of  the 
First  Methodist  Church,  performed  the  cere- 
mony. I  worshiped  and  worked  with  that 
church  for  several  years.  Though  never 
yielding  formal  assent  to  its  articles  of  faith,  I 
was  treated  as  kindly  as  if  I  had  been  a  bona 
fide  member,  and  I  have  ever  held  that  church 
in  grateful  regard  as  my  foster  mother  in 
religion. 

Dear  old  "  Auntie "  Graham,  was  the  first 
woman  I  ever  heard  utter  a  prayer  in  public, 
and  that  prayer  powerfully  moved  me.  She 
was  the  mother  or  grandmother  of  the  Metho- 
dists in  Shelbyville,  and  was  loved  by  every- 
body. Her  speech  in  meeting  was  to  me  a  mar- 
velous thing,  for  I  had  heard  all  my  life  that 
it  was  wrong  for  a  woman  to  speak  in  meeting. 
It  was  but  a  short  time  after  that,  "  Aunt 
Fanny  "  Gage,  then  of  St.  Louis,  and  later  of 
New  York  City,  spoke  in  Shelbyville  against 
strong  drink  and  pleaded  most  eloquently  that 
mothers,  wives,  sisters  and  daughters  should 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

have  equal  rights  before  the  law  with  men.  I 
became  an  enthusiastic  convert  and  loved 
"  Aunt  Fanny  "  thenceforth  as  if  she  were  my 
own  aunt.* 

How  much  it  helped  me  to  have  loved  and 
trusted  persons  to  pray  for  me!  This  will  ex- 
plain how  I  came  to  be  in  some  measure  instru- 
mental in  starting  one  of  the  earliest  revivals 
in  the  old  Methodist  church  at  Shelbyville.  I 
had  just  started  to  school  in  Shelby  Academy 
and  was  a  green  country  boy  without  anyone 
in  school  that  knew  me,  or  that  I  knew,  ex- 
cept indirectly.  Some  of  the  students  made 
sport  of  me  and  laughed  at  my  awkwardness, 
I  had  left  home  too  against  my  father's  wish 
and  with  my  mother  in  trouble.  This  caused 
me  great  distress  and  I  prayed  God  to  help  me 
to  be  a  Christian  and  to  prove  to  the  family 

*  The  first  library  at  the  beginning  of  my  work  at 
Log  Church  contained  several  of  Mrs.  Gage's  books. 
They  were  published  by  the  National  Temperance  So- 
ciety, New  York  City.  "The  Old  Still  House"  was 
one  of  the  books  of  which  I  think  she  was  the  au- 
thor. The  scene  of  that  story  seemed  to  have  been 
laid  in  southern  Illinois.  At  least  it  was  an  exact  pic- 
ture of  things  as  they  had  been  and  were  there.  The 
book  was  eagerly  read  until  several  copies  were  worn 
out.  No  book  in  our  Sunday-school  was  ever  read  so 
much  and  with  such  good  results. 

[  "75  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

that  I  had  only  the  best  motives  in  leaving 
home.  I  was  very  shy  and  shrank  from  public 
notice.  It  was  on  a  Sunday  afternoon  that 
I  started  to  school  in  Shelbyville.  I  walked  all 
the  way,  five  miles,  through  the  deep,  dark 
woods,  instead  of  going  directly  on  the  state 
road,  where  people  would  see  me.  I  called  at 
the  door  of  the  first  house  I  came  to  in  the  edge 
of  the  town, —  it  was  where  the  Chicago  &  East- 
ern Illinois  railway  depot  now  stands, —  and  it 
happened  to  be  the  humble  home  of  former  coun- 
try acquaintances,  namely  William  B.  Jackson 
and  his  wife.  I  told  them  I  had  come  to  go  to 
school  and  wanted  to  work  for  my  board  some- 
where. "  Very  well,"  they  said,  "  come  right 
in,  Jasper ;  we  will  have  something  for  you 
to  do  till  you  can  do  better."  They  were  as 
good  as  their  word.  The  first  j  ob  they  gave  me 
was  to  dig  a  cellar  for  them.  Mr.  Jackson  was 
later  for  many  years  a  Justice  of  the  Peace 
in  Shelbyville,  and  became  a  charter  member, 
and  a  good  one  too,  of  the  Unitarian  church. 
He  passed  away  years  ago,  but  his  widow  still 
lives,  over  eighty-five  years  of  age,  a  loyal  mem- 
ber of  my  congregation. 

It  was  in  a  shy,  lonely  and  homesick  mood  that 
I    went   one    Sunday    night   to   the   Methodist 
C  ™  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

church.  A  very  boyish  looking  young  man  by 
the  name  of  Phillip  Minear  preached,  and  the  ser- 
mon seemed  to  be  for  me.  At  the  close  of  the 
sermon  the  preacher  said :  "  If  there  be  any 
here  who  wish  to  be  Christians  and  want  to  be 
prayed  for,  let  them  come  forward  and  kneel  at 
the  altar  while  the  congregation  stands  and 
sings  a  hymn."  I  had  slipped  into  the  very 
back  seat  near  the  door  for  I  shrank  from 
being  seen  in  my  plain  clothes,  but  when  this 
invitation  was  given  I  walked  up  the  aisle  and 
knelt  at  the  altar  alone, —  the  only  one  who 
went  up  that  evening.  Fervent  prayers  were 
made  for  the  strange  lad  that  few  knew.  I  am 
not  sure  but  it  was  "  Auntie "  Graham  who 
made  one  of  the  prayers.  Encouraged  by  the 
move,  the  minister  announced  a  meeting  for 
Monday  evening;  and  on  that  evening  a  dozen 
or  more,  mostly  young  people,  went  to  the 
altar  with  me.  The  meetings  continued,  and 
grew  noisy  with  shouting,  too  noisy  for  me, 
because  some  of  those  who  shouted  did  not  im- 
press me  favorably,  and  some  of  the  more 
zealous  ones  disgusted  me.  I  quit  going  to  the 
meetings,  though  they  continued  for  a  month 
or  more,  and  were  then  transferred  to  another 
church  in  the  county  and  held  there  for 
[77] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

several  weeks.  There  were  hundreds  of  con- 
verts. Meantime  committees  were  sent  to  per- 
suade me  to  again  attend  the  meetings,  but  I 
stubbornly  refused.  Nevertheless,  all  the  while 
I  was  wrestling  in  prayer  and  beseeching  God 
for  such  a  miraculous  experience  as  my  mother 
and  grandparents  had.  I  went  to  my  mother, 
and  she  tried  to  reason  with  me  that  it  was  not 
necessary  for  me  to  have  exactly  her  experience. 
She  thought  I  was  already  a  Christian  al- 
though I  did  not  know  it.  My  grandfather 
Douthit,  whom  I  loved  and  trusted,  finally  said 
to  me,  "  Why,  Jasper,  you  should  not  make 
such  ado,  and  be  asking  God  to  give  you  the 
same  experience  that  your  mother  had.  St. 
John  gives  a  very  simple  test  of  how  we  may 
know  that  we  have  religion.  He  says :  '  We 
know  that  we  have  passed  from  death  unto  life, 
because  we  love  the  brethren.'  Now,"  con- 
tinued my  grandfather,  "  if  you  know  that  you 
love  the  brethren,  you  have  got  religion."  I 
thought  a  moment,  and  exclaimed  in  rapture! 
"  Why  grandfather,  of  course  I  love  every- 
body." 

A  few  mornings  after  that  talk  with  my 
grandfather,  I  went  into  a  deep  glen  near  Shel- 
byville  to  pray  and  thank  God  for  the  light 


JORDAN    UNITARIAN    CHURCH 
Dedicated  Sept.  29,  1870 


J^A^fc^* 

i     Pw  H 

P1^^  ~~*  ?„'  TTI   r 


I 


UNION    CHURCH    AT   MODE 

Dedicated  July  20,  1873 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

that  had  come  to  me.  It  was  winter  and  the 
trees  were  bare.  But  while  I  prayed,  the  winter 
woods  seemed  suddenly  glowing  with  a  won- 
drous light  and  beauty;  and  a  sweet  old  hymn 
came  to  me,  giving  assurance  that  God  sent 
Jesus  to  be  my  Deliverer,  Saviour  and  Best 
Friend,  forever.  Then  what  a  wonderful  peace 
came  to  me !  This  is  why  the  song,  "  Wonder- 
ful Peace,"  sung  by  Bishop  McCabe  at  Lithia 
Springs,  is  one  of  my  favorite  songs.  That 
morning  as  I  walked  the  busy  streets  to  school, 
the  faces  of  all  I  met  —  men,  women  and  chil- 
dren —  seemed  radiant  with  a  light  that  never 
shone  from  sun  or  star.  That  was  a  heavenly 
vision  which  I  have  tried  to  obey  for  over  fifty 
years. 

The  reader  may  smile  at  this  religious  ex- 
perience and  call  it  a  mere  fancy.  Well,  it  was 
a  mighty  real  and  uplifting  fancy  to  me  which 
I  hope  never  to  forget,  in  time  or  eternity.  I 
can  but  wish  that  more  of  those  whom  I  have 
tried  to  serve  would  experience  such  a  fancy, 
if  it  might  strengthen  and  comfort  them  as  it 
has  strengthened  and  comforted  me  through 
life's  hardest  battles  and  sorest  trials. 

The  majority  of  people  drawn  to  my  min- 
istry have  not  had  strong  religious  faith,  nor 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

have  they  been  trained  to  habitual  public  wor- 
ship. On  the  contrary  they  have  been  alien- 
ated from  the  church  and,  except  in  a  few  con- 
spicious  instances,  they  have  been  honest  doubt- 
ers, agnostics,  and  more  intellectual  and  material- 
istic than  spiritual.  To  preach  to  such  people 
is  harder  work  than  to  preach  to  spiritually- 
minded  people  and  habitual  church-goers.  It 
draws  on  the  nerves  and  vitality,  unless  the 
preacher  is  mighty  in  faith  and  full  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  I  remember  once  at  Meadville, 
President  Livermore  spoke  to  me  of  this  fact. 
"  But,"  continued  he,  "  such  people  are  just 
the  ones  who  need  earnest,  Christian,  Unitarian 
preaching."  Preaching  to  such  people  made 
me  crave  the  fellowship  of  deeply  spiritual  reli- 
gious people. 

When  asked  how  I  became  a  Unitarian  I  re- 
ply that  I  suppose,  like  Topsy,  "  I  jist  growed." 
Though  most  of  my  ancestors  were  Calvinists  and 
a  few  were  Methodists,  for  several  generations 
back,  yet  I  cannot  remember  the  time  when  I 
was  not  Unitarian  in  principle  —  that  is,  Uni- 
tarian in  what  to  me  to-day  is  the  broadest,  best 
sense  of  the  word.  I  would  emphasize  the 
unite,  and  care  less  for  the  arian  or  ism,  but  we 
must  have  some  name  in  this  world  in  order  to 
[  80  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

do  honest  business.  I  became  identified  with 
the  Unitarians  simply  because  they  were  the 
only  body  of  Christian  believers,  so  far  as  I 
knew,  who  would  ordain  me  and  give  me  perfect 
freedom  to  preach  the  gospel  as  God  gave  me  to 
see  it,  without  dictation  by  Pope,  Synod,  or 
Conference.  The  Methodist  people  with  whom 
I  first  taught  and  worshiped  gave  me,  indeed, 
the  liberty  to  speak  in  their  class  meetings ;  and 
when  teaching  in  the  primary  department  of 
the  Shelby  Academy,  I  made  appointments  to 
preach  in  the  school-houses  round  about.  I 
was  preaching  at  least  five  years  before  receiv- 
ing ordination  in  1862.  But  there  were  some 
churches  and  school-houses  where  I  was  not  al- 
lowed to  preach.  Therefore,  the  year  before 
the  Civil  War  began,  I  solicited  funds  and 
helped  build  an  independent  meeting-house  in 
the  woods  four  miles  east  and  south  of  Shelby- 
ville,  which  we  named  "  Liberty,"  and  which  was 
free  for  religious  and  other  public  meetings. 
Here  I  tried  to  preach,  and  organized  a  Sun- 
day-school. That  was  the  house  in  which  the 
"  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle  "  held  their  meet- 
ings. It  was  burned  soon  afterwards.  The 
burden  of  my  preaching  in  that  house  was  for 
Union,  Liberty,  Charity,  Temperance  and 
[  81  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

Righteousness  in  religion  and  through  the 
nation. 

The  preachers  I  heard  fifty  years  ago  had 
"  an  itch  for  disputation  "  and  heresy  hunting, 
so  that  congregations  were  split  upon  such 
questions  as  whether  God  made  the  Devil  or 
the  Devil  made  himself.  There  was  bitter  con- 
troversy and  turning  each  other  out  of  church 
on  such  questions  as  communion  and  baptism, 
regardless  of  how  pure  the  character  of  the 
heretic  might  be.  I  thought  that  was  all  wrong, 
but  I  dare  say  I  sometimes  made  the  mistake  of 
showing  some  of  the  same  spirit  which  I  con- 
demned; for  I  have  never  found  it  difficult  to 
show,  on  occasion,  the  requisite  amount  of  in- 
dignation against  what  I  believed  to  be  wrong; 
while  to  "  speak  the  truth  in  love,"  to  be  gen- 
tle amidst  "  an  evil  and  perverse  generation  " — 
is  not  so  easy. 

My  wife  had  often  heard  Rev.  Thomas  Went- 
worth  Higginson  speak,  and  she  admired  him 
and  Theodore  Parker,  and  told  me  that  they 
were  Unitarians.  She  thought  the  Unitarians 
would  ordain  me  to  preach,  taking  none  but 
Christ  for  Master  and  Leader  in  religion. 
That  was  what  I  wanted.  Accordingly  I  wrote 
Mr.  Higginson.  He  replied  in  a  very  kind 
[  82  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

letter,  and  referred  me  to  Robert  Collyer,  "  a 
noble  man  and  a  minister-at-large  in  Chicago. 
I  don't  know  how  radical  he  is,  but  he  is  liberal, 
which  is  better."  Soon  a  hearty  letter  came 
from  Brother  Collyer,  saying :  "  Come  and 
see  me,  and  go  with  me  to  our  Western  Confer- 
ence at  Detroit,  Michigan."  There  on  June 
22,  1862,  I  was  ordained  to  the  Christian  min- 
istry. Moncure  D.  Conway,  Charles  G.  Ames, 
Thomas  J.  Mumford,  George  W.  Hosmer,  and 
Robert  Collyer  took  part  in  the  service.  Then 
I  went  back  to  my  own  country,  preaching  in 
groves  and  school-houses,  for  I  was  not  allowed 
in  the  churches  —  till  worn  in  body  and  sick  at 
heart,  I  went  again  to  see  Brother  Collyer.  He 
looked  at  me  and  said :  "  My  dear  fellow,  you 
are  so  thin  I  doubt  if  you  can  stand  it  to  go 
through  four  years  at  Meadville,  and  I  am 
afraid  it  will  be  a  wet  blanket  to  your  enthu- 
siasm, but  you  shall  have  a  chance."  Rev.  J. 
G.  Forman,  then  minister  at  Alton,  Illinois,  and 
Secretary  of  the  Western  Sanitary  Commission, 
joined  heartily  with  Collyer  in  sending  me  to 
Meadville.  So  I  went. 

The  three  years  spent  at  the  Meadville  Theo- 
logical School  are  remembered  as  the  happiest 
and  most  helpful  period  of  my  life.     My  wife 
[  83  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

and  our  two  older  children  made  a  pleasant 
home  for  me,  and  all  the  associations  of  the 
school  inspired  me  to  do  and  be  my  best.  I  do 
not  remember  so  much  of  what  I  learned  from 
the  text-books,  but  there  is  a  flood  of  precious 
memories  of  the  spirit  and  life  that  pervaded 
the  school.  Personal  contact  with  such  peo- 
ple as  President  A.  A.  Livermore,  Doctors 
George  W.  Hosmer  and  Austin  Craig  (the 
genius  and  saint  of  the  "  Christian  Connec- 
tions"), Professors  George  L.  Cary  and  Fred- 
erick Huidekoper,  and  such  fellow  students  as 
Jenkin  Lloyd  Jones,  Edward  A.  Horton, 
George  H.  Young,  Isaac  Porter,  David  Cronyn, 
Charles  W.  Wendte  and  the  rest  meant  much 
to  me,  as  well  as  the  almost  daily  fellowship,  the 
religious  study  and  practice,  the  social  worship 
and  song,  and  Sunday  service  at  church  of 
such  a  minister  as  Richard  Metcalf,  whose  ser- 
mon on  "  The  Abiding  Memory  "  went  so  deep 
into  my  heart  that  I  shall  never  forget  it. 
Then  the  uniform  courtesy  —  the  "  kindness 
kindly  expressed "  —  of  the  patrons  of  the 
school,  the  Shippens,  the  Huidekopers  and 
others  —  and  especially  have  I  often  thanked 
God  for  Miss  Elizabeth  Huidekoper's  kindness 
to  my  family,  and  her  helping  hand  from  that 
[  84  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

day  till  now,  when  at  ninety  years  she  is  pro- 
moted and  crowned  forever  among  the  bene- 
factors of  that  school  on  God's  hill  —  all,  all 
abide  in  my  memory  as  a  living  picture  of 
"  sweetness  and  light."  I  know  there  were 
cloudy  days  and  nights  of  suffering ;  and  at  last 
I  was  obliged,  because  of  my  mother's  distress, 
to  go  home  to  her  instead  of  being  present  with 
my  class  at  graduation.  Nevertheless,  memory 
now  only  notes  the  cloudless  hours  and  cheerful 
faces. 

While  a  student  at  Meadville  Divinity  School 
I  received  what  I  regard  as  one  of  the  highest 
honors  of  my  life,  one  for  which  I  was  cer- 
tainly not  qualified.  I  was  offered  the  Presi- 
dency of  the  United  Brethren  College  at  West- 
field,  Clark  County,  Illinois.  In  scholarship  I  was 
not  prepared  for  the  position,  but  the  United 
Brethren  and  I  had  been  welded  together  by  a 
furnace  blast  that  tried  most  souls  in  the  war 
for  the  Union  and  against  slavery  and  intem- 
perance. We  had  been  emphasizing  the  unite 
for  several  years,  so  that  we  considered  our- 
selves as  one  in  spirit  and  purpose.  I  think 
it  must  have  been  from  this  fact  that  the  Uni- 
tarian missionary  was  thus  honored  by  the 
United  Brethren.  I  remember  that  when  I  con- 
[  85  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

suited  our  beloved  President  Livermore  about 
the  position  offered  me,  he  smilingly  said: 
"  Oh,  Brother  Douthit,  you  must  finish  the 
course  here  first,  and  then,  if  they  want  you, 
you  may  accept  that  position."  But  Westfield 
College  has  had  better  presidents  than  I  could 
have  made.  It  has  grown  and  is  now  one  of 
the  most  liberal  Christian  educational  institu- 
tions in  southern  Illinois. 

Soon  after  graduating  at  Meadville  in  1867, 
I  was  called  to  the  Unitarian  Society  in  Prince- 
ton, Bureau  County,  Illinois.  This  society  was 
a  part  of  the  congregation  of  the  Rev.  Owen 
Lovejoy,  member  of  Congress  and  brother  of 
the  abolition  martyr,  Elijah  P.  Lovejoy. 
While  at  Princeton  I  first  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  the  late  Carl  Schurz.  He  was  engaged 
to  lecture  there,  and  on  the  day  of  his  lecture 
in  the  evening  I  met  him  in  a  public  hall  where 
a  traveling  phrenologist  had  hung  on  the  wall 
likenesses  to  illustrate  a  series  of  lectures.  Mr. 
Schurz  was  interested  in  phrenology.  We  had 
a  pleasant  talk  about  the  pictures,  among  which 
was  one  of  Bismarck,  who  happened  to  be  the 
subject  of  his  lecture  that  evening.  I  had 
learned  to  admire  and  trust  Mr.  Schurz  when 
Lincoln  was  first  nominated  for  President,  and 
[  86  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

I  had  been  greatly  helped  by  the  example  of  his 
heroic  life  and  noble  character.  At  Princeton 
I  had  also  a  very  pleasant  and  most  helpful  ac- 
quaintance with  William  Cullen  Bryant,  the 
poet.  Three  of  his  brothers  were  members  of 
my  congregation,  and  my  wife  had  been  a  con- 
tributor to  the  poet's  paper.  Before  this  ac- 
quaintance with  the  author  of  "  Thanatopsis  " 
I  had  read  and  thought  more  of  Thomas  Car- 
lyle  than  of  Emerson;  but  Mr.  Bryant  called 
my  attention  to  the  fact  that  Emerson  was  al- 
ways sunny,  sweet  and  optimistic,  whereas  Car- 
lyle  was  often  cynical  and  pessimistic.  I 
needed  that  lesson  then.  In  my  first  efforts 
for  reform  I  was  liable  to  be  faultfinding,  to 
emphasize  the  error  more  than  the  truth,  and 
under  strong  excitement  was  disposed  to  ridicule 
and  be  sarcastic.  My  speech  was  too  often 
more  in  the  spirit  of  Carlyle  than  of  Emer- 
son —  perhaps  influenced  more  by  the  law 
thundered  from  Sinai  than  by  the  spirit  of  the 
Christ.  I  went  fishing  for  men  as  Mr.  Beecher 
once  said  some  ministers  did.  It  was  as  if  a 
fisherman  with  a  good  outfit,  hook,  line  and 
bait,  should  go  along  the  bank  of  the  stream 
or  pond  and  thrash  the  water  with  his  rod,  cry- 
ing "  Bite  or  be  damned."  The  great  apostle's 
[  87  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

advice  was:  "Speak  the  truth  in  love."  It 
is  possible  to  speak  the  truth  in  the  spirit  of 
Satan.  Jesus  said,  "  Let  your  light  so  shine 
that  others  seeing  your  good  works  may  glo- 
rify your  Father  which  is  in  Heaven."  Dr. 
William  G.  Eliot  once  said  to  me :  "I  think 
we  should  read  that  saying  of  Jesus  with  the 
emphasis  on  so."  That  is,  let  your  light  shine 
in  such  a  spirit  and  manner  as  will  show  more 
of  God's  truth  and  love.  I  had  a  fine  illustra- 
tion to  the  point  a  year  after  that  lesson  from 
Bryant.  I  was  preaching  in  Mattoon,  Illinois, 
and  Mr.  Emerson  filled  the  pulpit  for  me  one 
Sunday.  His  subject  was  "  Immortality." 
All  who  heard  him  praised  the  discourse,  be- 
cause, of  course,  none  of  us  wanted  to  be 
thought  unable  to  understand  the  great  man. 
There  was  a  little  six-year-old  girl  there  who 
joined  the  chorus  of  praise.  Her  grown  sister 
expressed  surprise,  saying :  "  Why,  child, 
what  do  you  know  about  that  sermon?  You 
couldn't  understand  a  word  of  it."  To  which 
the  little  sister  made  quick  reply :  "  Suppose 
I  didn't  understand  the  words,  I  knew  the 
sermon  was  good ;  for  I  could  see  it  in  his  face." 
When  excited  and  moved  with  indignation  at 
wrong,  I  have  often  felt  rebuked  by  the  memory 

[  88  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

of  the  following  words  of  Charles  G.  Ames  in 
his  "  charge  "  when  I  was  ordained.  He  said : 
"  Take  heed  to  your  spirit  and  temper,  that 
you  speak  the  truth  only  in  love.  The  hour 
cometh  when  looking  in  the  Master's  eye  of 
tender,  awful  goodness,  you  shall  judge  it  bet- 
ter to  have  spoken  three  words  in  charity  than 
three  thousand  words  in  disdainful  sharpness  of 
wit."  The  longer  I  live  the  more  I  feel  the  need 
of  pity  rather  than  blame  for  the  erring  and 
sinful. 

I  spent  three  months  at  Princeton  and  then 
went  back  to  my  own  country.  The  change 
was  a  hard  trial  for  both  my  wife  and  me.  I 
resigned  at  Princeton  in  the  face  of  the  unani- 
mous protest  of  the  members  of  the  society  and 
also  in  opposition  to  the  wish  of  some  dear 
friends  like  Robert  Collyer.  Indeed  it  seemed 
a  foolish  move  to  most  of  my  friends  to  give 
up  a  good  salary  and  pleasant  post  and  come 
to  a  region  where  I  must  serve  without  salary 
and  struggle  with  poverty.  But  God  and  my 
wife  and  my  sorely  troubled  mother  knew  why 
I  felt  this  to  be  the  loudest  call  on  earth  to  me. 
Aside  from  the  call  to  general  mission  work, 
there  were  strong  reasons  then  why  I  should  be 
near  my  distressed  mother,  who  the  doctors  said 
[  89  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

could  remain  but  a  little  longer  in  that  body 
of  pain.  She  had  grieved  because  of  my  ab- 
sence for  three  years  at  Meadville,  and  now  she 
begged  that  her  eldest  son  would  stay  with  her 
to  the  last  and  be  a  sort  of  guardian  to  her 
younger  children  when  she  was  called  away. 
No  wonder  some  dear  Unitarian  friends  were 
much  disappointed,  if  not  vexed,  to  have  me 
leave  such  a  position  as  I  had  in  Princeton  for 
this  unpromising  field.  They  did  not  know  all 
the  cause,  and  I  did  not  feel  at  liberty  to  tell 
it  then.  My  mother  and  brothers  and  sisters 
helped  me  all  they  could.  They  persuaded  my 
father  to  let  me  have  a  little  patch  of  ground 
to  cultivate,  and  on  which  Mrs.  Douthit  could 
raise  chickens  and  turkeys.  I  built  a  shanty 
which  we  afterwards  used  as  a  hen-house  and 
camped  in  it  until  my  brothers  helped  me  build 
a  house  of  three  rooms,  where  we  lived  from 
1869  to  1875,  when  we  moved  to  Shelby ville. 
Here  we  lived  in  a  little  old  house  till  the  Hon- 
orable George  Partridge,  of  St.  Louis,  joined 
with  friends  in  Shelbyville  in  helping  us  to  buy 
the  brick  parsonage  by  the  church.  There  was 
left  to  us  by  some  of  those  who  took  shares  in 
this  house,  a  debt  of  twelve  hundred  dollars  un- 
paid and  secured  by  mortgage.  This  pressed 
[  90  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

heavily  on  us  when  I  was  in  the  midst  of  my  anti- 
saloon  crusade  and  my  salary  was  cut  down.  It 
was  then  that  the  late  Mrs.  Helen  M.  Gougar,  a 
most  heroic  and  eloquent  temperance  reformer, 
was  called  to  plead  for  home  protection  in  Shel- 
byville.  She  learned  of  the  mortgage  on  our 
house,  and  our  pinch,  and  quietly  went  to  work, 
and  with  the  assistance  of  local  friends  and 
others  at  a  distance  she  gave  my  wife  and  me 
the  greatest  surprise  of  our  lives  —  a  warranty 
deed  to  the  house  free  of  all  incumbrances.  I 
mention  this  fact  because  of  an  erroneous  im- 
pression abroad,  that  my  wife  and  I  got  into 
debt  and  so  got  that  mortgage  on  the  house. 
We  did  not.  We  only  assumed  the  debt  that 
other  shareholders  incurred  and  failed  to  pay. 
But  we  did  mortgage  this  house  later  in  the 
effort  to  found  Lithia  Springs  Chautauqua. 


[  91  ] 


VII 

My  mission  work  began  in  the  old  "  Hard- 
shell "  Baptist  meeting-house,  later  called  the 
Log  Church,  where  my  mother  had  taken  me 
when  I  was  a  babe,  and  held  me  in  her  lap  dur- 
ing the  long  services  —  the  sermon  often  being 
two  hours  long.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  a  dis- 
trict that  had  always  been  destitute  of  any  other 
church  privileges.  For  many  miles  around 
there  were  no  other  churches  excepting  in  Shel- 
byville,  five  miles  away. 

The  Predestinarian  or  "  Hardshell "  Baptists 
were  the  first  people  who  held  religious 
services  in  that  region.  Their  theology  was 
Calvinism  gone  to  seed.  They  taught  that 
God  had  decreed  from  the  foundation  of  the 
world  a  fixed  number  who  were  to  be  saved  and 
a  fixed  number  who  were  to  be  cast  into  Hell 
forever,  without  any  regard  to  good  or  bad 
works.  Man  had  no  will  of  his  own.  Hence 
to  make  any  effort  to  improve  or  reform  or 
train  children  in  the  way  they  should  go  was 
[  92  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

folly,  if  not  blasphemy.  The  only  thing  to  do 
was  to  sit  still  or  drift,  and  let  God  do  it  all. 

I  state  this  old  Baptist  doctrine  just  as  I  un- 
derstood it  when  I  was  a  boy.  I  did  not  be- 
lieve it,  but  I  believed  in  my  mother.  My 
mother  and  grandmother  planted  Bible  seeds  in 
my  mind  and  heart  that  choked  out  the  doctrine 
of  the  preachers.  It  has  been  one  of  the  chief 
regrets  of  my  life  that  I  was  not  made  more 
familiar  with  the  Bible  in  my  early  youth  so 
that  I  could  quote  it  easily.  It  would  have 
been  a  great  advantage  to  me  among  the  people 
for  whom  I  have  labored.  I  once  asked  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson  how  he  would  convince  these 
people  of  the  sin  and  evil  of  slavery  and  strong 
drink,  especially  when  they  hold  to  the  Bible's 
infallibility  and  quoted  scripture  in  support  of 
slavery.  He  replied  promptly :  "  I  would 
quote  the  same  authority  against  slavery,  be- 
cause to  them  it  is  the  highest."  I  did  this  with 
excellent  effect. 

The  do-nothing  doctrine  of  the  "  Hardshell " 
Baptists  caused  them  to  vehemently  oppose  all 
missionary  efforts,  Sunday-schools  and  temper- 
ance reform  and  an  educated  ministry.  All 
that  saved  my  mother's  children,  so  far  as  I 
can  see,  was  the  fact  that  she  did  not  practise 
[  93  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

the  "  don't  care  "  doctrine  with  her  children, 
but,  by  constant  precept  and  example,  taught  us 
to  be  good  and  do  good.  She  and  my  father 
were  ever  saying  to  their  children,  "  Whatever 
you  do,  you  must  always  speak  the  truth,  be 
honest  with  everybody,  and  go  to  meeting 
(church)  and  behave." 

It  would  hardly  be  just  for  me  to  omit  say- 
ing that  while  my  Calvinistic  forefathers  held 
to  doctrines  and  practised  customs  which  in  the 
light  of  the  present  day  I  believe  to  be  wrong, 
yet  they  were  thoroughly  sincere  in  their  faith. 
"  I  would  rather  you  would  differ  from  me,  if 
you  must  in  order  to  be  honest,  than  to  pretend 
to  believe  what  you  do  not."  Thus  my  grand- 
father would  often  say  to  me.  They  were  more 
true  to  the  light  God  gave  them  than  some  of 
their  descendants  who  claim  greater  and  better 
light.  These  Baptists  called  a  member  who  was 
strong  in  the  faith  "  hard,"  which  meant  sternly 
orthodox ;  and  a  member  that  was  disposed  to  be 
liberal  they  called  "  soft."  My  mother  was 
reckoned  as  "  soft."  When  I  first  told  her  with 
joy  that  I  had  found  a  people  who  would  take 
me  in  and  ordain  me  to  preach  the  gospel,  she 
asked,  "  What  do  they  believe?  "  When  I  told 
her,  as  nearly  as  I  could,  she  exclaimed: 
[  94  ] 


MB.  DOUTHIT  ABOUT    1870 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

"  Why,  my  child,  that  is  what  I  always  believed. 
I  joined  the  Baptists  because  I  wanted  so  much 
to  belong  to  meeting,  and  there  was  nothing 
else  to  join." 

It  was  naturally  decreed  that  a  church  such 
as  I  have  described  should  die.  The  factions 
ground  together  like  the  upper  and  nether  mill- 
stones, having  no  grist,  till  they  ground  them- 
selves to  pieces.  Their  divisions  and  subdivi- 
sions were  endless  on  questions  that  nobody  on 
earth  knows  anything  about.  The  split  that 
was  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  the  old  church 
in  this  locality,  was  on  what  they  called  "  the 
two-seed  doctrine  " —  the  seed  of  good  and  evil. 
One  side  held  that  God  made  Himself  and  that 
the  Devil  made  himself,  and  each  of  them  had 
a  separate  kingdom.  The  other  side  contended 
that  God  created  Himself  and  the  Devil  also. 
The  church  split  on  that  question,  and  that 
about  ended  it  in  that  region.  My  mother's  last 
pastor  and  a  dozen  or  more  of  the  churches  of 
the  Southern  Illinois  Baptist  Association  went 
over  to  the  Universalists ;  for  their  good  hearts 
made  them  feel  that  if  God  had  decreed  any- 
thing, he  must  have  decreed  that  all  should  be 
saved. 

It  is  hard  to  conceive  of  a  community  with 
[  95  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

so  great  a  prejudice  against  giving  money  for 
religious  purposes  as  prevailed  in  this  locality. 
It  was  taught  to  be  especially  wrong  to  give 
money  for  church  or  missionary  purposes.  I 
knew  a  well-to-do  farmer,  a  good  fellow  in 
many  respects,  who  boasted  near  the  end  of  his 
long  life  that  he  had  never  given  a  dollar  to  a 
church  or  a  preacher.  And  yet  he  asked  me  to 
visit  him  at  his  death-bed  and  I  preached  his 
funeral  sermon.  I  had  many  years  before  been 
asked  to  pray  at  the  death-bed  of  his  wife.  I 
have  often  paid  livery  hire  to  serve  at  funerals 
where  the  bereaved  parties  seemed  to  think  the 
honor  of  being  invited  to  officiate,  and  a  "  thank 
ye,"  were  reward  enough.  I  have  thought  so 
too,  because  it  gave  me  a  hearing  among  many 
people  to  whom  I  could  never  otherwise  get  a 
chance  to  preach. 

I  have  known  professed  church  people,  good 
honest  fellows  as  the  world  goes,  who  were  sup- 
posed to  possess  fifty  or  seventy-five  thousand 
dollars,  who  seemed  to  think  they  were  doing 
generously  to  give  ten  or  twenty  dollars  a  year 
for  the  support  of  their  faith.  So  much  de- 
pends upon  early  training  and  the  custom  of 
the  community.  It  requires  much  grace,  tact 
and  generous  example  to  change  such  habits  — 
[  96  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

often  more  than  I  have  been  able  to  illustrate. 
The  following  editorial  appeared  in  the 
Shelby  County  Union  as  late  as  the  year  1870. 
It  illustrates  the  prejudice  that  even  then  pre- 
vailed against  giving  money  for  religious  ob- 
jects. The  Union  said: 

"  A  few  Sundays  ago  we  witnessed  the  taking 
up  of  a  collection  in  a  church.  It  was  at  the 
session  of  a  Sunday-school.  One  hundred  and 
fifty,  more  or  less,  were  present.  Some  shook 
their  heads,  some  appeared  too  busily  engaged 
to  notice  the  hat  when  passed,  while  others  dived 
into  their  pockets  and  made  a  '  dry  haul ' —  it 
may  be  a  few  tobacco  crumbs.  All  but  one  lone 
man, —  that  was  the  minister.  The  boy  who 
carried  the  empty  hat  looked  at  that  one  with 
something  like  mingled  pity  and  dread,  and  then 
reluctantly  presented  the  hat,  and  the  minister 
was  the  only  contributor  among  those  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  poverty-stricken  souls.  The  Su- 
perintendent of  the  Sunday-school  had  to  say 
that  the  weekly  distribution  of  Sunday-school 
papers  must  stop  for  want  of  a  few  dimes  nec- 
essary to  partly  pay  for  the  same.  And  yet 
harvests  are  plenty  and  business  brisk." 

But  there  is  a  brighter  sequel  to  that  story, 

for  the   Sunday-school  papers   were  not   long 

discontinued.     As  soon  as  the  want  was  made 

known,   the   Unitarian    Sunday-school    Society, 

[  97  1 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

gave  enough  copies  of  The  Daysprlng  to 
gladden  all  the  children's  hearts  and  brighten 
the  homes  round  about.  Some  "  Hardshell " 
Baptist  parents  made  their  children  return  the 
papers  and  said  they  should  not  come  to  the 
Sunday-school  if  they  were  allowed  to  read  any- 
thing but  the  Bible,  but  there  were  other  par- 
ents who  sent  money  to  help  pay  for  the 
"  pretty  little  paper."  I  remember  one  pious 
old  grandma  who  lived  in  a  cabin  in  the  deep 
woods  and  who  walked  one  day  over  two  miles 
through  a  snowstorm  to  our  home  on  the 
prairie.  She  came  to  bring  "  two  bits  "  (twenty- 
five  cents),  which  she  had  wrapped  carefully 
in  a  bandana  handkerchief,  to  pay  for  The 
Dayspring  for  her  grandchildren.  I  have 
been  happily  surprised  in  recent  years  to  find 
files  of  that  little  paper  preserved  to  this  day 
as  a  precious  treasure  in  some  homes  of  this 
mission. 

While  some  well-to-do  people  at  a  distance, 
knowing  the  character  of  the  work  and  the 
need,  have  volunteered  aid  and  seemed  happy 
to  do  so  again  and  again,  yet  in  this  vicinity 
it  has  been  wage  workers  and  persons  of  little 
means  who  as  a  rule  have  been  the  most  cheer- 
ful and  generous  co-workers  in  the  mission. 
[  98  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

Many  have  been  the  times  in  my  extremity  that 
some  of  the  poorest  in  this  world's  goods  have 
caused  me  to  thank  God  and  take  courage  for 
renewed  efforts.  They  have  helped  with  their 
own  hands  to  build  meeting-houses,  to  build  the 
tabernacle  and  library  chapel  at  Lithia,  and  to 
dig  down  hills  and  make  roads  in  the  park. 
In  many  instances  they  have  given  a  share  of 
their  wages  to  support  the  Chautauqua. 

For  example,  while  I  write  this  story,  a 
young  man  comes  to  say,  "  I  will  give  half  my 
wages  for  a  month  to  help  support  the  Chau- 
tauqua for  1908."  A  hired  girl,  on  learning 
that  the  Chautauqua  might  not  be  held  next 
year  for  want  of  funds,  says :  "  I  will  give 
$10  of  my  wages  rather  than  not  have  it  go 
on."  A  poor  man  and  an  excellent  helper  in 
Chautauqua  work,  whose  home  is  fifty  miles 
away,  says :  "  I  have  heard  that  you  are  hav- 
ing a  hard  tug  to  continue  the  Chautauqua.  I 
will  help  you  all  I  can  free  of  charge.  I  am 
going  to  rally  a  company  to  come  over  and  help 
you  this  year  for  the  love  of  it."  A  poor  ten- 
ant farmer  who  has  a  family  and  a  hard  strug- 
gle to  make  ends  meet  comes  to  say :  "  There 
are  several  of  us  fellows  who  can't  give  much, 
but  we  will  give  ten  dollars  apiece  to  help  out  the 
[  99  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

Chautauqua,  because  it  is  doing  our  folks  so 
much  good." 

Several  times  in  the  history  of  this  mission, 
when,  for  want  of  support,  I  was  on  the  eve 
of  answering  a  louder  call,  some  of  the  poor 
people  of  my  parish,  without  knowing  that  I 
had  decided  to  leave,  have  come  to  the  rescue. 
For  instance,  once  while  we  lived  in  the  little 
home  on  the  prairie,  my  wife  and  I  were  ready 
to  give  up,  but  just  then  there  came  a  poor 
farmer  in  a  two-horse  wagon  with  a  load  of 
chickens,  sacks  of  flour,  potatoes,  and  other 
family  necessities  and  said :  "  I  know  you 
must  be  having  a  hard  scrabble  to  get  along, 
but  I  do  hope  you  will  stick  by  us,  for  we  can- 
not do  without  you." 

Another  time,  in  Shelbyville,  I  had  written 
my  resignation  when  one  of  the  poorest  families 
of  my  congregation  did  an  act  which  moved  the 
hearts  of  those  in  better  circumstances  to  make 
me  feel  obliged  to  reconsider  my  decision. 

I  will  relate  one  very  singular  experience. 
It  was  during  one  of  the  darkest  hours  in  our 
battle  at  Lithia.  It  seemed  that  we  must  give 
up  and  surrender  our  home  and  everything  but 
honor.  We  were  at  the  bottom  of  the  meal 
tub,  and  my  wife  and  I  had  determined  to  live 

[  100  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

on  spare  diet  rather  than  incur  more  debt.  In 
that  critical  hour,  there  came  to  our  door  one 
dark  night  a  woman  of  a  popular  church,  a 
woman  who  had  the  name  of  being  stingy  and 
whose  husband  I  had  tried  hard  to  rescue  from 
drink.  This  widow  did  not  know  of  our  want. 
She  called  my  wife  and  said :  "  The  Lord  has 
been  telling  me  all  day  that  before  I  slept  I 
must  come  and  give  you  some  money.  I  don't 
know  why  it  is  so,  but  I  can't  sleep  till  I  have 
given  you  this ;  but  you  must  never  mention  my 
name  to  anyone  but  your  husband."  Then  she 
said  "  Good-night."  She  had  given  my  wife 
twenty-five  dollars.  In  less  than  a  month  after 
that  event  some  Unitarian  friends  helped  us  to 
push  the  battle  at  Lithia  for  another  year.  By 
such  seemingly  special  providences  we  were  kept 
in  the  battle. 

But  I  must  go  back  to  the  early  days  of  the 
mission.  One  Sunday  afternoon  in  the  Log 
Church  —  after  two  of  the  Baptist  preachers 
had  preached  an  hour  and  a  half  or  two  hours 
each,  and  had  denounced  Sunday-schools  and 
new-fangled  college  preachers,  I  arose,  and  an- 
nounced a  meeting  the  next  Sunday  for  the  or- 
ganization of  a  Sunday-school.  The  novel  an- 
nouncement created  a  sensation;  and  there  was 

[  101  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

a  crowd  on  hand,  mostly  children  of  laborers 
working  on  the  railroad,  now  the  Big  Four. 
We  had  a  big  Sunday-school.  Then  my  wife 
started  a  subscription  school,  and  had  a  house 
full,  the  greater  number  being  Irish-Catholic 
children.  I  held  meetings  every  night  for  sev- 
eral weeks.  The  old  house  was  crammed  and 
jammed,  running  over  with  people.  But  it 
could  stand  the  pressure.  It  was  built  of  hewn 
logs  of  big  trees,  and  had  enough  timber  in  it 
to  make  half  a  dozen  houses  of  its  size. 

The  crowd  that  gathered  at  the  Sunday- 
school  hour  did  not  all  come  from  religious 
motives.  Sometimes  a  few  of  them  came  to 
settle  quarrels  that  had  begun  at  a  dance  or  at 
the  races.  It  was  not  a  very  great  novelty  to 
have  a  fight  in  the  yard  or  the  road  with  knives 
and  pistols.  Once  in  Sunday-school,  while  I 
was  expounding  the  Beatitudes,  a  rough  man 
who  was  fired  with  drink,  rose  and  said,  "  That's 

all  a lie."     He  further  said  he  had  come 

there  to  whip  the  abolition  preacher,  and  he 
was  going  to  do  it  right  away.  The  fellow  was 
angry  with  me,  because,  knowing  of  the  dis- 
tress of  his  family,  I  had  warned  saloon  keep- 
ers that  I  would  prosecute  them  if  they  let  him 
have  liquor.  He  had  come  to  take  vengeance 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

upon  me.  A  half  dozen  boys  remonstrated 
with  him,  and  when  he  persisted  in  his  determi- 
nation and  rushed  for  the  pulpit,  it  became  nec- 
essary to  deal  with  him  less  gently.  In  spite 
of  his  struggles,  the  boys  succeeded  in  taking 
him  bodily  and  placing  him  on  the  back  of  his 
horse,  and,  on  promise  of  good  behavior,  he 
was  permitted  to  go  his  way.  Then  we  called 
back  into  the  house  the  scared  and  scattered 
women  and  children,  for  there  was  only  one  adult 
man  there,  and  all  sang  with  spirit  and  under- 
standing a  rousing  temperance  song. 

My  wife  and  I  lived  at  first  in  a  little  shanty, 
about  ten  by  twelve.  We  tried  to  live  on  what 
she  earned  by  teaching  and  what  I  could  raise 
by  cultivating  a  little  farm.  The  whole  com- 
munity, except  the  Catholics,  were  "  dead  set " 
against  paying  a  preacher  anything.  A  for- 
eigner, however,  who  became  a  regular  attend- 
ant at  my  meetings,  came  to  me  one  day  and 
said,  "  I  don't  see  how  you  live  without  pay. 
Come  down  to  my  house  and  I  will  give  you  a 
little  sweetening  to  help  you  along."  He  gave 
me  a  big  jug  of  sorghum  molasses.  That  was 
my  first  year's  salary  and  my  first  pay  as 
preacher  in  that  mission.  The  next  year  the 
same  man  paid  me  five  dollars,  this  being  the  first 
[  103  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

money  I  received  as  salary  from  the  people 
to  whom  I  was  preaching.  This  man  was  not 
noted  for  his  generosity,  but  he  had  been  trained 
to  give  for  the  support  of  the  gospel.  Then  an 
old  fellow  who  hailed  from  Nova  Scotia,  and 
who  was  inclined  to  scoff  at  the  church,  said: 
"  I  find  that  since  these  preaching  services  have 
begun  my  chickens  have  not  been  stolen  so  much, 
and  life  and  limb  are  safer.  I  for  one  am  wil- 
ling to  chip  in  to  help  keep  the  thing  a-going." 
And  so  he  headed  a  subscription,  and  went 
with  it  to  Shelbyville,  five  miles  away.  Thus 
my  third  year's  salary  was  increased  to  about 
fifty  dollars,  although  my  wife  made  much  more 
by  raising  chickens  and  turkeys  than  I  did  by 
preaching. 


[   104  ] 


VIII 

In  the  first  years  of  my  work  at  the  Log 
Church,  1867  and  1868,  I  began  to  preach  in 
Mattoon.  At  first  the  Methodist  and  Cum- 
berland Presbyterian  churches  were  kindly 
opened  to  me ;  and  then  the  public  halls.  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson,  the  Concord  sage,  gave  me  a 
labor  of  love  in  Union  Hall,  on  Sunday,  Dec. 
15,  1868,  and  on  the  following  Sunday,  Dec. 
22  —  Forefathers'  Day  —  Unity  Church  of 
Liberal  Christians  was  organized  in  Mattoon. 

I  also  preached  at  the  school-houses  round 
about,  tried  to  cultivate  a  little  farm  of  twenty 
acres,  and  edited  a  department  in  the  Shelby- 
ville  Union,  called  "  The  Preaching  Corner." 
This  was,  of  course,  purely  a  labor  of  love, 
but  it  required  the  best  of  two  days  of  each 
week  for  preparing  copy,  reading  proof  and 
going,  on  foot  or  horseback,  to  and  from  Shel- 
byville. 

I  started  also  to  build  a  new  chapel  in  my 
[  105  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

own   district    and   the   following   letter  to    my 
brother  tells  how  it  was  done: 

"April  17th,  1870. 
"  Dear  Brother  George, — 

"  I  am  overwhelmed  with  work.  Is  that  news 
to  you?  This  morning  I  awoke  at  two  o'clock, 
and  the  more  I  thought  of  what  there  is  to  do 
to-day  the  more  I  couldn't  sleep.  Most  that 
presses  now  to  be  done  is  for  other  folks  and 
pro  bono  publico.  I  find  the  Chapel,  Oak 
Grove,  will  go  unfinished  another  summer  (the 
enterprise  had  lagged  through  one  summer)  un- 
less I  drop  all  and  go  right  to  work  at  it. 
Hence  it  comes  to  pass  that  I  strike  out  as  soon 
as  daylight  to  hire  a  plasterer,  see  that  the  mor- 
tar is  mixed,  etc.,  etc.  I  expect  to  go  right  on 
and  foot  the  bill  myself,  if  I  can  sell  anything ; 
and  when  it  is  ready  I'll  send  for  Collyer  to  dedi- 
cate it  and  then  ask  the  assembled  people  to  pay 
for  their  church,  and  if  they  don't  do  it,  I  will 
resign  in  a  farewell  discourse,  give  them  my  pri- 
vate opinion  of  a  people  who  appreciate  the  gos- 
pel enough  to  permit  a  preacher  to  build  a 
church  and  pay  for  the  privilege  of  preaching 
in  it.  /  am  in  earnest." 

This  Oak  Grove  Chapel  stood  within  a  few 
feet  of  the  spot  where  our  primitive  log  school 
house  stood  sixty-eight  years  ago.  There  we 

[  106  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

little  boys  with  nothing  to  wear  but  coarse, 
home-spun  tow  shirts,  a  single  garment,  hang- 
ing below  the  knees  like  the  children's  night- 
gowns now,  first  went  to  school,  and  said  over 
and  over  again  every  day  for  six  months,  our 
A  B  C's.  About  a  mile  from  the  same  place 
I  taught  my  first  subscription  school  when  I 
was  eighteen  years  old.  Robert  Collyer  came 
down  from  Chicago  to  the  dedication  of  this 
chapel.  It  was  a  novel  occasion  —  the  first  of 
the  kind  in  that  region.  I  will  let  him  tell  of 
this,  his  first  visit  to  the  mission.  The  follow- 
ing is  an  extract  from  a  report  he  gave  to  The 
Liberal  Christian,  a  weekly  paper  edited  by  Dr. 
Bellows,  published  in  New  York  City : 

"  Jasper  L.  Douthit's  new  church  in  Shelby 
County,  Illinois,  was  dedicated  on  Thursday, 
the  29th  of  September,  1870.  It  was  a  beauti- 
ful and  touching  sight  to  me  altogether.  The 
church  is  called  the  Oak  Grove  Church.  It  is 
in  the  center  of  a  noble  piece  of  woodland, 
buried  so  deep  there  that  they  have  had  to  cut  a 
road  two  miles  long  through  the  timber  on  one 
side,  and  another  a  little  shorter  in  another  di- 
rection. But  the  place  is  central  in  the  thinly- 
settled  region  over  which  Mr.  Douthit  has  the 
care  of  souls.  It  is  also  close  to  the  secluded 
cemetery  of  the  countryside  —  a  sweet  spot  as 

[  107  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

ever  the  sun  shone  upon  —  silent  above  ground 
almost  as  below.  The  church  itself  is  a  nice, 
seemly  structure  of  the  meeting-house  order 
of  architecture.  The  seats  and  pulpit  are  of 
black  walnut,  rough  but  solid.  The  whole  thing 
is  home-made ;  that  is,  by  Mr.  Douthit  and  the 
rough-and-ready  farmers  and  others  interested 
in  the  movement,  together  with  the  help  of  a 
devoted  carpenter,  who  gave  a  great  deal  of  his 
labor.  Contributions  of  work  and  money  have 
been  made  by  members  of  almost  all  the  churches 
in  that  region,  by  Jews  also,  and  a  few  out- 
siders. It  fell  to  my  lot  to  preach  the  dedica- 
tion sermon.  A  Lutheran  minister  read,  '  The 
wilderness  and  the  solitary  place  shall  be  glad 
for  them,'  and  offered  the  prayer.  They  listen 
down  in  '  Egypt '  to  the  preaching  as  if  it  did 
them  good.  I  left  the  manuscript  in  the  saddle 
bags  and  ventured  to  speak  without  it.  Said 
very  little  about  points  of  difference  and  all  I 
could  about  the  great  things  all  Christians  hold 
in  common.  They  have  the  quaint  old  Quaker 
fashion  down  there  of  sitting  separately  —  the 
men  on  the  one  side,  and  the  women  on  the  other. 
The  women  wore  sunbonnets,  and  some  of  the 
men  were  without  their  coats.  Rustic  all  of 
them  and  rough,  but  good  to  look  at, —  very. 
Mr.  Douthit  had  one  great  load  on  his  mind  - — 
the  lifting  of  the  debt.  It  was  only  about  two 
hundred  dollars,  but  it  was  appalling  to  him  be- 
cause they  had  all  done  what  they  could  who  had 
the  thing  at  heart.  He  told  me  afterwards, 
[  108  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

with  a  solemn  face,  that  if  it  hadn't  been  paid 
he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  sell  his  only  mare. 
Mr.  Douthit  made  a  most  effective  address  at 
the  close  of  the  sermon,  and  told  the  people  what 
he  wanted  them  to  do.  There  was  a  little  spurt 
of  generosity,  then  a  pause,  as  when  a  ship 
about  to  be  launched  slides  almost  down  to  the 
water  and  then  will  go  no  further;  but  we  put 
our  shoulders  to  it  and  started  afresh ;  got  warm 
to  the  work;  went  through  the  whole  congre- 
gation, one  by  one,  and  ended  by  getting  almost 
half  as  much  again  as  was  wanted,  making  the 
minister  about  as  happy  as  a  minister  can  be. 

"  I  can  hardly  tell  how  much  good  Mr. 
Douthit  has  done  in  that  region.  It  is  to  me 
simply  wonderful.  Religious  men  and  women 
of  other  persuasions  join  with  him  and  help  in 
the  singing  and  prayer.  His  brothers,  splen- 
did, stalwart  fellows,  are  on  his  side,  and  main- 
tain his  cause.  He  goes  to  Mattoon  once  a 
month  when  he  is  strong  enough,  and  has  a 
small  hearing  there;  writes  a  religious  column 
for  one  of  the  papers,  and  has  a  small  farm  be- 
sides, but  I  doubt  whether  he  is  much  of  a  far- 
mer, and  small  blame  to  him.  Is  it  worth  my 
while  to  say  that  his  best  helper  and  inspirer 
after  God,  is  his  wife,  a  small  slender  woman 
from  Abington,  in  Massachusetts,  who  is  proud 
and  glad  in  her  quiet  way,  of  the  good  work. 
She  works  herself,  also,  I  fear  beyond  her 
strength,  but  does  not  seem  to  know  it;  a  poet 
and  a  thinker,  doing  her  own  housework,  a 
[  109  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

woman's  work  on  a  farm,  caring  for  her  little 
brood  of  children,  and  almost  not  regretting 
that  she  is  five  or  six  hundred  miles  from  a 
mountain  and  eight  or  nine  hundred  from  the 
sea." 

So  much  for  Robert  Collyer's  report.  It 
was  Mr.  Collyer's  eloquence  and  running  fire 
of  drollery  and  happy  anecdotes  that  completely 
captured  the  crowd.  At  first  some  persons  left 
the  house  with  a  grumble.  This  provoked  Coll- 
yer  to  a  witty  comment  which  I  cannot  recall, 
but  to  the  effect  that  it  did  not  disturb  him  for 
little  children  to  run  out  of  church  while  he 
talked,  but  grown  folks  ought  to  have  learned 
to  behave  better  when  a  stranger  came  to  do 
them  good.  Then  some  sang  and  others 
laughed,  and  the  grumbling  fellows  returned  to 
see  what  was  up.  There  was  soon  a  broad  smile 
on  their  faces  and  they  shoved  their  hands  into 
their  pockets  and  "  shelled  out "  their  loose 
change.  I  remember  one  dear  old  woman  who 
wore  a  frilled  cap  with  a  sunbonnet  over  it.  I 
had  known  her  for  a  lifetime,  but  had  never 
known  her  to  give  a  cent  for  any  such  thing. 
She  looked  glum  and  cross  when  Mr.  Collyer 
began  his  plea,  but  soon  she  smiled  and  pulled 
out  of  her  pocket  a  little  bag  of  silver  and 


OAK   GROVE    CHAPEL 

With  one  of  the  oldest  burying-grounds  in  that  part  of  the  country 


FIRST    UNITARIAN    CHURCH,   SHELBYVILLE 

Dedicated  May  8,  1876 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

emptied  it  in  the  collection.  Blessed  be  her 
memory ! 

Not  long  after  that  I  was  offered  the  ap- 
pointment under  President  Grant's  administra- 
tion to  an  Indian  Agency,  which  I  declined,  and 
most  of  my  friends  thought  I  was  foolish  to  do 
so,  just  as  they  thought  when  I  declined  the 
post-office  under  Lincoln. 

On  my  birthday,  Monday  morning,  October 
10,  1870,  I  wrote  my  brother  George  who  was 
at  Antioch  College : 

"  My  Dear  Brother, — 

"  I  want  you  to  help  me.  Since  Collyer  was 
with  me  and  is  gone  I  feel  even  more  lonely  than 
before.  Perhaps  the  excitement  and  wear  and 
tear  were  too  much  for  me.  At  any  rate  I  have 
had  a  low,  sad  time  for  a  week  or  more,  and  like 
Elijah  under  the  Juniper  tree,  I  have  placed  my 
face  on  the  earth  and  asked  the  Lord  to  let  me 
die  and  go  where  the  wicked  trouble  us  no  more 
and  the  weary  are  at  rest.  Of  course,  I  know 
this  is  not  the  right  spirit,  even  while  I  can't  feel 
differently.  «O  God,  be  pitiful!'  I  would 
write  to  you  about  our  dedication,  but  that  I 
was  surfeited  with  it  and  the  troubles  it  brought, 
and  do  not  want  to  think  about  it  much.  We 

had  trouble  with  the  family  again  about 

it.  They  didn't  want  Collyer  to  preach  the 
dedication  sermon  at  all  unless  he  would  preach 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

it  on  Sunday,  and  voted  against  it,  although  a 
large  majority  voted  for  him  to  come  as  he  did. 
The  day  appointed  it  rained  and  we  postponed 
till  next  day.  Collyer  gave  a  most  rousing  talk 
that  made  eyes  water  with  mirth  and  sorrow 
alternately,  and  when  we  asked  for  help  to 
clear  the  church  of  debt  we  got  by  pledges  on 
paper  two  hundred  and  ninety -five  dollars!  A 
most  miraculous  draught!  It  will  pay  the  debt 
wholly  and  partly  pay  for  a  bell  for  the  chapel. 
I  never  beheld  such  generosity  before.  Only 
three  persons  in  the  congregation  said  no! 
The  others  seemed  glad  to  give  because  Robert 
Collyer  asked  them.  I  long  for  the  days  when 
you  will  be  with  me;  but  still  I  pray  you  press 
on  at  Antioch  and  graduate.  Write  letters  to 
your  brothers  and  sisters  exhorting  them  to 
fidelity  and  to  be  good  Christians.  Why  don't 
you  have  the  Index  sent  direct  to  you  and 
save  me  the  trouble  of  mailing  ?  Pardon  me  for 
saying  that  I  think  it  is  not  just  the  thing 
which  you  need  to  read.  You  had  better  by 
far  read  Beecher's  Lecture  Room  Talks,  etc. 
Write  me  a  good  long  letter.  May  God  bless 

^  "  Affectionately, 

"  JASPER." 

"P.  S. —  This  is  my  birthday.  I  am  36 
years  old  and  some  wiser  if  no  better.  Give  my 
love  to  Dr.  Hosmer  and  tell  him  I  often  think 
of  him." 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

In  my  diary  of  Thursday,  Jan.  5th,  1871, 
appears  this  entry : 

"  Elder  Ellis  closed  his  labors  with  us  Mon- 
day night.  He  presented  a  subscription  at  the 
close  of  meeting  for  my  support  for  the  year 
1871.  Mostly  young  folks  were  present. 
They  came  up  with  remarkable  alacrity  and  put 
down  their  names,  for  from  one  to  ten  dollars  — 
only  three  of  the  latter.  It  amounted  to  sixty- 
two  dollars  on  paper,  on  the  spot,  and  most  of 
the  members  of  the  society,  strange  to  say,  were 
absent.  In  fact  this  was  subscribed  largely 
by  those  who  gave  nothing  last  year.  Ellis 
talked  to  them  very  plainly.  Said  he,  '  I  am 
his  ( Jasper's )  bishop  and  he  shall  go  away  from, 
here  if  you  don't  support  him  better  than  you 
have  done.'  " 


[  113  ] 


IX 


I  remember  that  for  the  first  twenty  or 
twenty-five  years  of  my  life  there  were  no 
funeral  services  whatever  at  the  burial  of  the 
dead,  not  even  a  hymn  or  prayer,  throughout 
the  country  in  which  I  was  reared  and  began 
preaching.  It  was  the  custom  to  have  a  funeral 
preached  some  months  or  years  after  the  death. 
Then  the  preacher  made  no  reference  to  the 
dead  but  a  long  harangue  mostly  of  scripture 
quotations  to  prove  his  pet  doctrine  and  comfort 
the  elect.  I  recall  nothing  tender  and  uplifting 
that  was  spoken  on  such  occasions,  and  yet  there 
was  something  in  the  deep  sincerity  of  the 
preacher  and  the  general  spirit  of  the  service 
that  struck  me  with  awe  and  made  me  want  to 
be  good.  This  custom  of  no  service  at  funerals 
shocked  new-comers.  I  have  heard  Yankees  and 
Irish-Catholics  exclaim :  "  What  a  queer  peo- 
ple these!  They  bury  their  dead  as  if  they 
were  no  more  than  dogs !  "  But  now  for  many 
years  I  have  not  known  any  people  in  all  this 
country  so  "  queer "  as  not  to  have  a  funeral 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

service  at  the  burial;  so  that  even  those  who 
habitually  neglect  the  church  and  lead  godless 
lives  never  bury  one  of  their  family  without 
calling  a  minister  to  officiate. 

I  have  said  I  never  witnessed  a  funeral  service 
at  a  burial  till  I  was  over  twenty  years  old.  It 
was  on  the  death  of  the  husband  of  my  father's 
sister.  While  his  body  lay  in  the  coffin  at  their 
home  and  the  mourners  had  gathered  to  follow 
it  to  the  grave,  my  aunt  begged  me  to  read 
some  comforting  scripture  and  make  a  prayer. 
But  after  that  first  service  at  my  uncle's  death 
to  this  present  time  I  have  ministered  at  the 
burial  of  all  my  uncles  and  aunts,  in  this  vicin- 
ity, and  nearly  all  my  relatives  in  this  locality 
on  my  father's  side,  who  have  passed  away ;  and 
there  are  dozens  of  these  laid  side  by  side  here 
since  fifty  years  ago.  When  grandfather 
Douthit  passed,  Elder  John  Ellis  assisted  me  in 
the  service.  When  my  mother  went  in  August, 
1871,  aged  fifty-seven,  my  young  brother 
George  assisted  me  with  a  most  uplifting  hymn. 

Two  years  after  my  mother's  death,  my 
brother  George  himself  joined  "  the  Choir  In- 
visible." Then  I  must  alone  endeavor  to  speak 
comforting  words  to  the  weeping  crowd  in  Oak 
Grove  Chapel,  where  he  had  helped  me  so  effect- 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

ively.  That  was,  at  the  time,  the  sorest  cross 
of  my  life.  I  could  not  feel  that  it  was  right 
for  one  to  go  who  was  so  young,  so  stalwart 
physically  and  so  helpful  and  full  of  promise 
as  co-worker  with  me  in  the  ministry. 

George  Douthit  was  a  manly  man.  His  body 
was  large  and  tall,  weighing  nearly  two  hun- 
dred pounds,  with  a  fine  face,  and  most  like,  so 
my  mother  used  to  say,  his  father  when  young 
and  before  the  dread  custom  of  the  times  had 
changed  him.  He  had  a  charming  musical 
voice.  He  was  the  picture  of  health,  and  seemed 
destined  for  long  life.  He  was  cheerful,  full 
of  humor  and  good  spirits,  fond  of  manly  exer- 
cise, and,  withal,  of  most  serious  purpose.  He 
felt  called  to  help  me  in  the  ministry  and  did 
help  wonderfully.  But  he  presumed  too  much 
on  his  strong  constitution.  He  overworked  and 
unwisely  exposed  himself.  He  returned  from 
Antioch,  after  a  year  of  hard  study,  and  worked 
through  a  heated  term  in  the  harvest  field.  He 
was  prostrated  with  malarial  fever  and  when 
slightly  recovered  he  attended  crowded  meetings 
of  nights  in  badly  ventilated  and  over-heated 
rooms. 

I  want  to  tell  a  great  deal  about  my  brother 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

George  in  this  story,  because  he  has  been  near 
me  and  a  co-worker  in  this  mission  as  effectively 
since  what  we  call  his  death  as  before  that  event. 
"  For  are  they  not  all  ministering  spirits  ?  " 
The  story  of  my  life  work  would  be  sadly 
lacking  without  this  testimony  of  what  his  life 
on  earth  and  in  heaven  has  helped  me  to  be 
and  do. 

I  cannot  now  sing  well  enough  to  be  heard  in 
public;  and  I  could  scarcely  distinguish 
"Yankee  Doodle"  from  "Old  Hundred"  till 
I  heard  brother  George  sing.  The  last  time  he 
was  with  me  in  a  public  meeting  before  he  passed 
up  higher,  he  sang  with  such  marvelous  power 
the  old  hymn :  "  Guide  me,  O  Thou  Great 
Jehovah,"  that  it  seemed  as  if  a  holy  contagion 
swept  through  the  entire  audience;  and  a  little 
while  after,  to  my  great  surprise,  I  was  singing 
that  hymn  as  I  had  never  sung  before  in  my  life, 
though  I  had  learned  printed  notes  in  music  and 
tried  in  vain  for  many  years  to  sing. 

I  am  convinced  there  is  infinitely  more  music 
to  be  learned  by  contact  with  hearts  and  souls 
inspired  of  God  than  by  all  the  training  of 
experts  with  printed  notes  or  vocal  culture. 
"  Nearer  my  God  to  Thee  "  was  sung  by  my 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

brother  George  at  Log  Church  the  first  time 
it  was  heard  in  this  part  of  the  country.  He 
had  learned  it  at  Antioch  College. 

George  was  one  of  the  little  band  of  eight 
persons  who  united  in  organizing  the  first 
Unitarian  church  in  southern  Illinois,  namely, 
the  Oak  Grove  Church  of  Liberal  Christians. 
When  he  heard  the  history  of  my  early  struggles 
and  my  failure  to  get  to  Antioch  College,  he 
was  ambitious  to  gain  a  victory  over  that 
failure.  He  would  go  to  Antioch  anyhow, 
graduate  and  come  back  and  help  me  win  other 
victories  from  defeat.  He  did  go,  for  three 
years.  Meantime,  as  was  revealed  after  his 
death,  he  bequeathed  the  little  estate  he  pos- 
sessed to  be  used  for  the  education  of  my  chil- 
dren, so  deeply  interested  was  he  in  my  work. 

Not  only  in  this  mission  was  his  death  greatly 
mourned,  but  his  teachers  and  fellow  students 
at  Antioch  College  felt  his  loss  keenly.  They 
had  all  grown  strongly  attached  to  him,  and 
were  deeply  impressed  with  his  life  among  them, 
so  much  so  that  Doctor  George  W.  Hosmer,  the 
President  of  the  College,  was  moved  to  come  and 
preach  a  sermon  in  his  memory  a  few  months 
after  the  burial. 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

I  cannot  forbear  transcribing  some  extracts 
from  a  letter  written  at  the  time  of  my  brother's 
death  by  President  Hosmer  to  the  Liberal 
Christian.  This  letter  was  dated  February  10, 
1873.  It  reads  as  follows: 

"  Just  now  we  are  mourning  the  loss  of 
George  W.  Douthit,  the  brother  of  our  mission- 
ary minister  in  southern  Illinois.  Mr.  Douthit 
was  twenty-four  years  old,  a  member  of  our 
Sophomore  class,  a  superior  scholar,  and  a  noble 
young  man.  He  died  at  his  home  in  Illinois. 
Let  me  tell  you  of  this  family  and  its  home. 

"  Southern  Illinois,  you  know,  was  Egypt, 
because  so  dark  with  ignorance,  intemperance, 
and  the  love  and  defense  of  slavery.  In  that 
darkness  these  young  men,  our  devoted  minister, 
Jasper,  and  this  lamented  George  and  other 
brothers  and  sisters  were  born.  Jasper  was  the 
eldest,  and  in  his  early  youth  he  rose  up  in  pro- 
test against  the  life  about  him ;  he  was  for  anti- 
slavery,  for  temperance,  for  education,  and  for 
free  liberal  Christianity.  The  community  was 
incensed  against  him,  violence  was  threatened; 
but  he  stood  calm  and  determined.  Pressed  by 
such  difficulties  and  dangers  even,  he  heard  there 
was  to  be  a  Conference  of  Liberal  Christians  at 
Detroit.  I  remember  him  as  he  appeared  there, 
looking  as  Abraham  Lincoln  would  have  looked 
at  his  age.  He  touched  our  hearts,  he  con- 

C 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

vinced  our  reason,  and  we  gave  him  the  right 
hand  of  fellowship,  and  helped  him  go  to  Mead- 
ville  to  prepare  for  the  ministry. 

"  When  Jasper  was  prepared,  by  three  years 
at  Meadville  school,  he  would  go  nowhere  else 
but  back  to  his  old  battlefield  in  Illinois,  though 
earnestly  invited  to  easier  fields  of  labor,  and  he 
returned  in  solemn  purpose  to  do  what  he  could 
to  scatter  that  darkness.  And  there  he  has  been 
for  some  years,  enduring  hardness  that  Paul 
would  praise.  He  is  near  his  old  home  amidst 
those  who,  twelve  years  ago,  threatened  him  with 
violence,  and  his  sphere  is  an  area  of  fifteen  to 
twenty  miles;  he  has  four  preaching  stations, 
and  is  giving  himself  in  all  helpful  ways  to  the 
people  around  him.  I  think  we  have  no  such 
Christian  ministry  as  his. 

"  George,  whose  death  we  mourn,  rose  up  in 
the  light  of  Jasper's  life.  Quickened,  inspired 
and  aided,  he  came  here  for  education  to  prepare 
himself  for  usefulness  in  helping  Jasper.  He 
has  distinguished  himself  here,  showing  large 
ability  and  fine  intuition.  Always  grave,  ear- 
nest and  manly,  he  prompted  his  fellow  students 
to  true,  noble  life. 

"  Just  before  leaving  here,  Mr.  Douthit  read 
a  paper  of  rare  pith  and  force  before  his  Lit- 
erary Society.  The  last  time  he  was  with  his 
associates,  it  became  known  that  he  was  to  leave 
for  a  time,  and  some  of  the  younger  members, 
with  an  unreasonable  levity,  called  upon  Mr. 
Douthit  for  a  song.  With  a  quiet  dignity  he 
[  120  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

rose,  and  uttering  a  Methodist  farewell  song  or 
hymn,  to  suit  his  circumstances  and  feelings,  he 
sang  it  through,  filling  eyes  not  used  to  weeping 
with  tears,  and  awakening  thoughts  of  tender 
solemnities  in  those  not  often  reached  by  reli- 
gious appeals." 

The  visit  of  Dr.  Hosmer  and  the  memorial 
service  proved  one  of  the  most  memorable  oc- 
casions in  the  history  of  this  mission.  The  ven- 
erable president  was  a  most  impressive  person- 
ality to  look  upon.  He  was  large,  dignified  and 
manly,  with  silver  locks  and  a  face  beaming  with 
smiles.  My  father  thought  Dr.  Hosmer 
preached  the  greatest  sermon  he  ever  heard.  It 
moved  all  hearts.  It  was  a  beautiful  tribute 
to  the  memory  of  one  whose  brief  life  had  seem- 
ingly moved  more  souls  to  think  of  God  and 
eternal  life  than  many  who  stay  on  earth  more 
than  three  times  as  many  years. 

While  visiting  me  on  this  occasion,  Presi- 
dent Hosmer  wrote  again  to  the  Liberal  Chris- 
tian, of  June  7th,  1873,  giving  his  impression 
as  follows: 

"  Here  I  am,  this  charming  summer  day,  in 
southern  Illinois,  in  Brother  Douthit's  best 
room,  in  the  quiet  country,  a  beautiful  grove 
round  the  simple  house,  the  wild  flowers  bloom- 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

ing,  and  the  birds  singing,  making  the  morning 
joyful.  This  room  has  a  large  case  of  some 
of  the  best  books  usually  seen  in  a  minister's 
library.  There  are  four  large  portraits  upon 
the  wall,  each  finely  significant  —  Dr.  Chan- 
ning's,  Theodore  Parker's,  Robert  Collyer's,  and 
one  of  George  Douthit,  the  brother  of  our 
friend  Jasper,  a  very  superior  young  man,  a 
student  of  Antioch  College,  who  died  last  win- 
ter. We  all  loved  and  highly  valued  him,  and 
the  college  sends  me  to  sympathize  with  the  be- 
reaved neighborhood  and  bear  testimony  to  the 
worth  of  the  promising  young  man.  I  wish 
our  whole  denomination  could  see  the  modest 
home  of  their  missionary  and  his  field  of  work. 
His  house,  built  by  his  own  hands,  with  the  help 
of  the  brothers,  would  hold  a  small  part  of  our 
Israel  at  a  time,  and  the  intrusion  would  be  seri- 
ous to  most  housekeepers;  but  Mrs.  Douthit, 
who  was  a  Massachusetts  woman  and  not  a 
stranger  to  books  and  Muses,  with  a  calm, 
sweet  dignity,  would  not  be  disturbed.  We 
really  have  an  Oberlin  here  in  southern  Illinois. 
Brother  Douthit  strives  to  supply  the  spiritual 
wants  of  the  people  anywhere  within  six  or  seven 
or  ten  miles.  He  has  four  principal  preaching 
stations;  and  by  his  large,  catholic  spirit  and 
fine,  sharp  thought,  he  is  winning  hearers  and 
fellow  workers;  and  a  great  enlightenment  al- 
ready appears.  People  are  collected  for  wor- 
ship ;  schools  are  better  managed  and  more  cared 
for. 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

"  The  work  Mr.  Douthit  is  doing  here  is 
hard, —  to  many  it  would  seem  repulsive, —  and 
very  poorly  compensated;  he  could  not  live  but 
for  his  few  acres  of  land  and  his  garden. 
These  farmers,  many  of  them,  having  had  no  re- 
lations with  any  church  for  years,  have  no  habit 
of  giving  and  are  surprised  with  themselves 
when  Mr.  Douthit's  unselfishness  and  real,  use- 
ful service  wins  gifts  from  them.  But  the  work 
is  interesting;  it  shows  the  only  way  of  uplift- 
ing these  wide-spreading  farming  communities 
of  the  West." 

Sometimes,  when  cast  down  and  feeling  keenly 
my  personal  shortcomings  and  failure  to  ac- 
complish what  I  have  attempted,  I  have  been 
cheered  by  the  thought  that  if  this  mission  has 
been  the  means  under  God  of  saving  that  one 
brother  from  ruin,  and  making  his  brief  life 
such  a  power  for  good,  the  mission  has  been 
worth  more  than  it  has  cost.  And,  so  far  as 
God  gives  me  to  see,  the  lives  of  scores  of  young 
people  whom  I  knew  forty  or  fifty  years  ago 
would  have  been  blasted,  as  many  before  them 
had  been,  but  for  just  such  influences  as  God 
sent  through  this  Unitarian  mission. 

In  a  remote  part  of  the  county  some  twelve 
niiles  from  Shelbyville,  about  a  mile  from  a  little 
village  called  Mode  and  beside  one  of  the  oldest 
[  123  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

graveyards  in  the  county,  there  was  a  little  log 
school-house.  I  preached  there  for  some  time, 
and  the  house  became  too  small  for  our  meetings. 
Then  the  farmers  said  they  would  join  hands 
and  build  a  new  meeting-house  and  call  it  Union 
Church,  to  be  free  to  all  denominations  when 
not  occupied  by  the  Unitarians.  The  house 
was  built  to  seat  some  three  or  four  hundred 
people,  and  everybody  said  that  Robert  Collyer 
must  come  and  dedicate  it.  They  had  read  and 
heard  of  his  being  at  Oak  Grove  Chapel.  Mr. 
Collyer  came  and  when  he  arrived  he  said  he 
had  gotten  farther  into  the  real  Egypt  than 
he  had  ever  been  before ;  for  it  was  a  sort  of 
wilderness  place. 

The  following  report  of  the  dedication  serv- 
ice was  made  by  the  Shelby ville  Union: 

"  Last  Sunday,  the  13th  of  July,  1873,  was 
the  day  set  apart  for  the  dedication  of  a  new 
church  just  completed  near  Mode,  in  this  county, 
and  twelve  miles  southeast  of  this  city.  In  the 
service  the  Unitarian,  Christian,  Methodist  and 
Presbyteriari  sects  were  represented.  An  ex- 
cellent choir  had  been  extemporized  by  Prof.  J. 
C.  Smith,  of  Marshall,  Clark  County,  who  had 
also  the  aid  of  a  sweet-toned  instrument.  About 
six  hundred  dollars  in  money  was  to  be  raised, 
to  leave  the  house  free  from  debt.  It  was  up- 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

hill  work.  Mr.  Collyer  said  that  one  sad  sign 
of  the  need  of  a  church  in  that  community  was 
the  apparent  indifference  on  the  part  of  some 
persons  in  the  immediate  vicinity.  Many  per- 
sons gave  beyond  their  ability.  For  example: 
it  was  enough  to  bring  tears  to  a  stingy  man's 
eyes  to  see  old  Uncle  Jacob  Elliott  come  forward 
holding  out  a  handful  of  money  in  addition  to 
the  generous  contributions  of  money,  timber  and 
land  he  had  already  given.  He  is  one  of  the 
oldest  settlers  of  Shelby  County  and  truly  one 
of  nature's  noblemen.  And  his  wife  is  equal  to 
her  worthy  husband.  Everybody  had  a  free 
invitation  to  go  to  Uncle  Jacob's  crib  and  help 
himself  to  oats  and  corn  for  his  beasts  and  to  eat 
a  lunch  with  him.  The  name  of  Jacob  Elliott 
will  go  down  to  a  grateful  posterity,  while  the 
men  who  live  in  splendid  mansions  and  refused 
to  give  anything  will  be  forgotten.  Uncle 
Jacob  lives  in  an  old  log  house  of  but  two 
rooms." 

It  was  during  this  visit  for  the  dedication  at 
Mode  that  Mr.  Collyer  learned  the  story 
of  John  Oliver  Reed's  remarkable  conversion. 
A  while  before  this  visit  of  Mr.  Collyer,  this 
man  had  told  his  religious  experience  in  a  heart- 
searching  speech  to  a  wondering  crowd  at  a 
meeting  at  Oak  Grove  Chapel.  My  wife  and 
I  took  notes  of  that  speech,  and  reported  to 
Mr.  Collyer  when  he  came.  He  made  a  sermon 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

story  of  it  to  his  congregation  in  Chicago,  and 
it  was  published  in  the  daily  papers.     Then  the 
American   Unitarian  Association   printed  it   in 
tract   form,   and   it   was   reprinted   in   England 
and    translated    into     Welsh.     Thousands     of 
copies  have  been  and  are  still  being  circulated 
in  America  and  in  other  countries.     The  tract 
is  entitled  "  A  Story  of  the  Prairie."     It  is  true 
to    facts    in    every    particular.     John    was    my 
cousin,  the  son  of  my  father's  sister,  and  after 
his  conversion  he  told  how  once,  while  I  was 
taking  the  enrollment  for  the  draft,  he  went  to 
one  of  my  Sunday  services  with  a  pistol  in  his 
pocket,  resolved  to  shoot  me  if  I  preached  what 
he  had  heard  I  was  in  the  habit  of  preaching; 
but  during  the  opening  prayer  he  gave  up  the 
resolve;  and  was  troubled  in  conscience  till  the 
great  light  and  wonderful  peace  came  to  him. 
In  those  early  days  I  made  appointments  at 
various   school-houses,   and   nearly   always   had 
good     congregations.     Much      of     the     time, 
having  no  other  way  of  getting  there,  I  walked 
through  mud  or  snow  or  sleet.     The  last  long 
walk  made  on  Sunday  morning  to  fill  an  ap- 
pointment was  twelve  miles  through  the  snow. 
There   was    just    one   family    at    meeting    that 
stormy  morning,  and  they  were  not  members  of 
[   126  ] 


MR.  DOUTHIT  AND  HIS  SONS  ROBERT  AND  GEORGE 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

the  church.  They  afterwards  became  zealous 
members  of  the  Free  Methodist  church,  but 
were  always  my  faithful  friends.  The  father 
helped  me  to  buy  one  of  the  first  printing 
presses  used  in  the  mission;  and  his  daughter 
was  married  at  the  Unitarian  parsonage  and 
went  to  Africa  as  a  missionary,  and  died  there. 

During  this  period  Elder  John  Ellis,  of 
Yellow  Springs,  Ohio,  a  liberal  evangelist  of  the 
"  Christian  Connection,"  gave  valuable  assist- 
ance in  my  work.  Elder  Ellis  was  one  of  the 
early  trustees  of  Antioch  College  and  he  was 
at  one  time  editor  of  the  Herald  of  Gospel 
Liberty,  published  at  Dayton,  Ohio,  said  to  be 
the  oldest  religious  weekly  published  in  the 
United  States.  But  he  was  mostly  a  pilgrim 
preacher,  walking  to  his  appointments,  much 
of  the  time,  with  staff  in  hand,  till  he  dropped 
suddenly. 

Brother  Ellis  was  powerful  in  song  and 
prayer.  He  was  the  author  of  the  once  popular 
song  in  the  West,  called  "  The  White  Pilgrim," 
and  he  could  sing  it  most  impressively.  He  be- 
came interested  in  my  work  in  the  year  1868, 
and  from  that  time  to  the  close  of  the  first 
protracted  meeting  in  the  court-house,  March, 
1876,  he  was  frequently  with  me.  He  helped 
[  127  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

in  the  gathering  of  congregations  at  Oak 
Grove,  Mode,  Sylvan  and  other  points  in  the 
county.  He  died  a  few  years  ago  at  the  age 
of  eighty.  His  wife,  a  physician  and  relative 
of  General  W.  T.  Sherman,  published  her  hus- 
band's autobiography,  in  which  he  speaks  only 
too  kindly  of  me  and  my  labors.  At  one  time 
in  the  first  years  of  the  work  in  Shelbyville, 
Mrs.  Ellis  had  a  class  of  over  fifty  young 
women  in  Unity  Sunday-school  who  were  mostly 
hired  girls  in  the  homes  of  the  town. 

During  the  years  of  my  preaching  at  Oak 
Grove,  Mode,  Sylvan,  Mt.  Carmel  and  the  old 
court-house,  and  in  the  early  meetings  at 
Lithia  Springs,  Jacob  Smith,  a  popular  sing- 
ing-school teacher,  gave  me  valuable  assistance. 
He  was  an  elder  in  the  Presbyterian  church  at 
Marshall,  Illinois,  but  was  a  most  loyal  friend. 
He  sang  with  his  whole  soul  and  taught  others 
to  sing  in  my  meetings  from  the  time  we  first 
met,  about  1869,  till  the  Father  called  him 
home. 


[   128  ] 


In  1874  I  was  jaded  in  body  and  hedged 
in  by  poverty.  The  way  to  continue  the  work 
was  hidden.  My  mother  had  died  and  I  was 
not  needed  at  home  for  her  sake.  Brother 
George  had  gone.  I  was  tempted  to  give  up ; 
but  some  friends  urged  me  to  go  to  the 
National  Unitarian  Conference  in  Saratoga, 
New  York,  and  make  a  speech.  My  wife  said 
I  was  not  fit  to  go  alone.  Our  four  children 
were  quite  small.  The  youngest  child,  our 
Christmas  gift,  three  years  old,  seemed  too  little 
to  leave.  However,  it  was  decided  to  leave  all 
with  friends  and  go.  I  thought  it  would 
probably  be  the  only  and  last  opportunity  I 
would  have  to  testify  to  a  Unitarian  Conference 
of  what  was  nearest  my  heart.  People  had 
told  me  that  Unitarianism  was  only  for  the 
"  highly  cultured,"  and  that  I  was  wasting  my 
life  where  the  field  was  not  ready  for  our 
gospel.  I  really  felt  that  if  this  were  true,  I 
[  129  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

could  not  call  myself  a  Unitarian,  but  before 
I  discarded  the  name,  I  would  clear  my  con- 
science with  some  last  words  to  the  Unitarian 
body.  Moreover,  I  was  encouraged  on  learning 
that  distinguished  Unitarians  like  Doctors  Ed- 
ward E.  Hale,  Henry  W.  Bellows,  Rush  R. 
Shippen  and  Robert  Collyer  had  determined  to 
make  a  forward  move  for  missionary  work. 

So  I  accepted  the  invitation  to  speak  at  the 
National  Conference  and  Mrs.  Douthit  went 
with  me.  The  missionary  meeting  was  held  on 
Thursday  evening,  September  17,  and  Judge  E. 
Rockwood  Hoar  presided.  One  of  the  speakers 
was  Rev.  Thos.  L.  Eliot,  of  Portland,  Oregon, 
who  was  most  eloquent  for  aggressive  work. 

From  the  rapturous  applause  his  address  re- 
ceived, I  began  to  think  that  the  main  body  of 
Unitarians  was  alive  for  the  gospel  to  all 
people.  I  was  glad,  though  I  trembled,  to  be 
called  to  follow  Dr.  Eliot.  The  following  is 
the  synopsis  of  my  speech  as  reported  at  that 
time  in  the  Christian  Register: 

"  We  ought  to  have  learned  from  higher  au- 
thority than  Prof.  Max  Mueller  that  Christian- 
ity is  a  missionary  religion.  The  command  of 
its  great  founder  was,  '  Go  into  all  the  world 
and  preach  the  gospel.'  To  preach  the  gospel 
[  130  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

in  Christ's  mind  was  to  live  the  gospel.  Chris- 
tianity is  not  merely  giving  wise  advice,  not 
going  half  way,  but  the  whole  way,  to  save  men 
from  sin.  The  Holy  Spirit  blows  everywhere 
for  the  salvation  of  men.  The  leaven  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God  leavens  the  whole,  not  half,  of 
humanity.  If  Unitarianism  does  not  mean  that 
a  Christian  is  a  missionary  by  nature,  if  it  does 
not  mean  to  convert  the  world  to  Christianity, 
then  we  had  better  give  up  the  Christian  name 
and  no  longer  dishonor  it.  What  shall  we  do? 
Shall  we  scatter  our  literature?  Yes;  but  let 
us  send  men  as  missionaries  with  the  Holy  Spirit 
in  their  hearts.  It  is  a  great  joy  to  me  that 
this  denomination  has  concluded  not  to  spend 
its  force  in  grinding  upon  itself,  but  that  it  is 
to  show  a  more  missionary  spirit.  We  need 
more  spiritual  force.  We  need,  as  Dr.  Hedge 
has  said,  '  morality  with  the  divine  emphasis.' 
Where  the  will  of  God  fills  the  heart,  it  finds  the 
way  to  other  hearts.  It  is  the  individual,  per- 
sonal sympathy  that  moves  men.  Warm  sym- 
pathy is  what  most  people  crave.  And  for  the 
want  of  it  amongst  us,  many  remain  in  false 
ecclesiastical  relations  who  would  otherwise  join 
with  us  in  the  army  of  progress.  On  the  line 
of  progress  in  holiness  and  love  let  us  move  on- 
ward. Let  us  obey  the  laws  of  God,  which  are 
the  laws  of  progress." 

Dr.   Henry  W.   Bellows,  of  New  York,  the 
beloved    President    of    the    National    Sanitary 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

Commission  for  the  armies  of  the  Union  in  the 
Civil  War,  followed  me  with  one  of  his  most  in- 
spiring addresses.  "  Dr.  Bellows  never  spoke 
with  greater  power,"  so  the  Christian  Register 
reported ;  and  that  was  saying  much  of  the  most 
eloquent  preacher  then  among  the  Unitarians. 
"  The  meeting  was  exceedingly  enthusiastic," 
continues  the  Register's  report.  "  Brothers 
Eliot  and  Douthit  received  the  warmest  welcome 
that  warm-hearted  people  could  give.  They 
are  the  embodiment  of  the  true  missionary 
spirit." 

At  the  close  of  the  meeting  Judge  Hoar,  the 
chairman,  was  the  first  to  thank  me  for  my 
address.  Then  followed  scores  to  shake  hands 
and  express  sympathy.  I  was  surprised  beyond 
expression,  and  my  wife  was  still  more  sur- 
prised, "  for,"  said  she,  "  I  have  heard  you 
preach  better  often  when  nobody  thanked  you." 

The  hour  was  late;  but  after  the  speaking, 
Rev.  Rush  R.  Shippen,  Secretary  of  the  Con- 
ference, presented  the  following  resolution: 

"'  Resolved;  That  we  give  to  Brothers  Eliot 
and  Douthit  our  hearty  sympathy  and  God- 
speed in  their  arduous  labors  in  difficult  places 
of  our  work,  and  that  we  promise  them  sus- 
tenance and  sympathy  forever." 
[  132  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

The  resolution  was  emphatically  approved  by 
a  standing  vote  of  that  audience  of  several 
thousand  wide-awake  Unitarians.  That  great 
multitude  of  bright,  cheering  faces  was  about 
the  most  inspiring  scene  I  ever  beheld.  It  seems 
as  if  it  would  never  fade  from  my  memory. 

The  following  editorial  comment  appeared  in 
the  Christian  Register  of  Sept.  26,  1874,  Rev. 
Thomas  J.  Mumford,  Editor: 

"  The  best  meeting  at  the  Saratoga  Confer- 
ence was  on  Thursday  evening,  when  in  addi- 
tion to  the  other  excellent  addresses  Messrs. 
Eliot  of  Oregon,  and  Douthit  of  Illinois,  made 
the  most  telling  speeches  of  the  kind  to  which 
we  have  ever  listened.  The  earnestness,  sim- 
plicity and  modest  unconsciousness  of  these  no- 
ble men,  fresh  from  their  outposts,  thrilled  the 
whole  assembly,  and  if  the  representatives  of 
our  churches  had  felt  authorized  to  make  large 
pledges,  the  hoped-for  $100,000  could  have 
been  raised  on  the  spot.  Many  laymen  said 
substantially :  '  If  this  is  the  work  that  can  be 
done  in  our  country,  and  such  men  as  these  can 
be  found  to  do  it,  it  is  time  for  us  to  close  our 
skeptical  mouths  and  open  our  unbelieving 
pocket-books  very  wide  in  response  to  the  ap- 
peal of  the  Unitarian  Association.'  Many 
clergymen  also  heard  and  we  trust  heeded  the 
voice  of  that  memorable  hour  which  called  them 
[  133  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

to  renewed  consecration  and  increased  sacrifice 
in  the  work  of  the  ministry.  There  is  nothing 
so  potent  in  its  influence,  or  so  searching  in  its 
suggestions,  as  the  presence  of  faithful  men  who 
have  endured  hardness  without  the  least  whim- 
pering or  boastfulness.  It  puts  to  shame  all 
our  ordinary  devotion  and  average  fidelity. 
Messrs.  Eliot  and  Douthit  must  return  to  their 
isolated  positions  cheered  and  strengthened  by 
such  cordial  manifestations  of  the  confidence, 
honor  and  love  of  their  communion." 

Ex-Governor  John  D.  Long,  of  Massa- 
chusetts, later  Secretary  of  the  Navy  in  Presi- 
dent McKinley's  cabinet,  in  an  article  in  the 
March,  1875,  number  of  the  Unitarian  Review, 
Boston,  has  this  bit  of  description : 

"  At  the  recent  National  Conference  at  Sara- 
toga, where,  with  the  few  usual  exceptions  which 
prove  the  rule,  everybody  was  brilliant  and  fer- 
vid and  kindling;  where  some  denominational 
questions  were  argued  with  rare  eloquence; 
where  orators  spoke,  unsurpassed  in  graceful 
persuasiveness  or  magnificent  declamation ; 
where  elaborate  thinkers  searched  the  obscurest 
enigmas  of  theology  and  science,  the  audience 
groping  to  follow, —  you  who  were  there  re- 
member that  one  evening,  at  a  sort  of  mission- 
ary meeting,  there  came  forward  a  young  man, 
slender  and  tall,  and  as  lank  as  Abraham  Lin- 
[  134  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

coin.  His  straight  hair  ran  down  behind  his  ears 
to  the  collar  of  his  coat.  He  rambled  in  his 
speech,  as  if  he  were  timid  before  that  cultivated 
assembly,  and  stumbled  over  the  minutes  which 
at  first  he  held  in  his  hands.  But  his  voice 
somehow  was  of  that  sympathetic,  human  sort 
that  you  couldn't  help  listening  to;  his  eyes 
were  so  honest  and  soulful  and  saintly  that  you 
couldn't  look  away  from  them ;  and  as  he  nar- 
rated in  a  homely  way  his  labors  among  obscure 
men  in  obscure  places,  his  preaching  in  barns 
and  taverns  and  court-houses  and  school-houses 
and  school-rooms,  in  that  Egypt  which  is  the 
Nazareth  of  his  state,  going  about  doing  good, 
literally  following  in  the  steps  of  the  Saviour, 
with  scarce  other  compensation  than  his  own 

Cse  of  doing  the  Master's  work, —  so  worn 
n  his  labors  that  he  was  almost  too  ill  to  be  at 
Saratoga, —  the  heart  of  every  man  and  woman 
in  that  audience  went  out  to  him  and  loved  him ; 
and  more  than  one  cheek  was  wet  with  tears. 
Human  nature,  which  loves  warm  existences  and 
generous  deeds,  and  wearies  of  philosophy  and 
talk,  seemed  to  assert  itself  with  a  glad  sense  of 
relief;  and  this  genuine  Christian  warrior  and 
holy  pilgrim  was  from  that  hour  the  very  hero 
of  that  great  Conference,  though  himself  all  the 
time  utterly  simple,  unaffected  and  unconscious ; 
and  as  I  looked  at  his  pale  face  and  listened  to 
the  sweet  Methodistical  appeal  of  his  voice, 
which  rose  in  the  eloquence  of  truth,  when  he 
threw  his  notes  aside  and  uttered  his  soul  in  the 
[  135  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

freedom  of  his  own  quaint,  natural  exhortatory 
style,  like  a  bird  singing  in  its  native  forest; 
and  as  I  thought  of  the  Jim  Bludsos,  the  rough 
natures,  the  hungry  souls,  whom  no  white 
choker  or  clerical  pendant  could  have  touched, 
but  to  whom  he  had  brought  a  gleam  of  the 
higher  life,  and  in  whom  he  had  implanted  the 
springing  seeds  of  Christian  charity  and  cul- 
ture ;  of  the  homes  he  had  blessed  and  the  hearts 
he  had  lightened, —  then  and  there  it  was  that, 
walking  on  the  plains  of  Judea,  healing  the 
sick,  blessing  little  children,  feeding  the  poor, 
and  comforting  the  sinning  and  the  sorrowing, 
I  saw,  with  my  own  eyes,  once  more  upon  the 
earth,  a  living  disciple  of  the  blessed  Jesus  of 
Nazareth.  Such  a  spirit  and  such  a  life,  adapt- 
ing themselves,  of  course,  to  every  variety  of 
circumstances  and  society,  are  what,  if  there  is 
any  worth  in  Christianity,  the  Christian  Uni- 
tarian body  wants  today ;  for  such  were  the  life 
and  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ,  its  founder." 

Thus  I  was  introduced  only  too  kindly  to  our 
Unitarian  body.  I  feel  unworthy  and  rebuked 
every  time  I  read  such  kind  words  as  I  have 
quoted  about  myself  in  these  pages;  but  I  have 
been  persuaded  that  it  is  due  the  cause  to  which 
I  have  devoted  my  life,  and  to  the  distinguished 
friends  who  have  thus  kindly  testified  and  co- 
operated with  me  in  the  mission.  In  the  words 
of  him  who  gave  me  the  "  charge "  at  my 
[  136  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

ordination,  Rev.  Charles  G.  Ames :  "  I  have 
learned  from  the  Swedish  sage  that  he  who  takes 
to  himself  the  credit  of  good  works  which  the 
Lord  enables  him  to  perform,  is  at  heart  a 
thief  — he  takes  what  does  not  belong  to 
him." 

I  never  again  received  such  enthusiastic  ap- 
plause as  that  at  Saratoga.  I  never  was  invited 
but  once  afterwards  to  address  so  large  an 
audience.  That  was  a  year  or  two  after  the 
meeting  at  Saratoga  and  it  was  in  Music  Hall, 
Boston.  I  was  in  no  condition  to  speak.  I 
had  been  dissipating,  that  is,  I  had  accepted  in- 
vitations to  too  many  banquets.  In  company 
with  Doctors  Hale,  Bellows,  Brooke  Herford, 
Rush  R.  Shippen  and  others,  I  had  lunched  at 
Harvard  College  with  President  Eliot;  and  on 
the  evening  of  the  meeting  at  Music  Hall  I  had 
been  with  Doctor  Hale  to  a  club  banquet  in  Bos- 
ton, where  by  request  I  had  given  some  report 
of  my  acquaintance  with  Ralph  Waldo  Emer- 
son on  his  lecture  tour  in  the  West.  My  ad- 
dress at  Music  Hall  seemed  to  fall  flat,  though 
there  were  some  expressions  of  approval  from 
Doctors  Bellows  and  Hale  and  a  few  others  on 
the  platform.  I  hope  never  to  forget  how,  at 
the  close  of  the  meeting,  Doctor  Hale  kindly 
[  137  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

took  me  to  his  home,  put  me  to  bed,  passed  his 
hand  softly  over  my  face  and  said  soothingly: 
"  Good  night !  Good  night !  You  have  done 
what  you  could.  Now  don't  worry,  but  sleep 
sweetly."  I  had  tried  very  hard  to  keep  from 
making  known  my  distress;  but  somehow  the 
dear  man  knew  it  all. 

That  meeting  at  Saratoga  made  me  quite  rec- 
onciled to  my  task.  Mrs.  Douthit  and  I  then 
consecrated  ourselves  anew  to  this  mission.  It 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  mostly  in  the 
strength  of  the  inspiration  and  assurance  re- 
ceived at  that  Conference,  I  have  kept  courage 
and  pegged  away  here  "  in  His  name  "  thirty- 
eight  years  longer  than  I  had  expected.  I  have 
held  on,  hoping  against  hope  deferred,  because  I 
believed  that  whatever  else  might  be  said  of  the 
faults  of  Unitarians,  they  were  noted  for  being 
as  good  as  their  word,  and  so  long  as  I  gave 
myself  and  my  all  to  the  faith  that  makes  faith- 
ful and  also  tried  my  best  to  practise  the  faith- 
fulness that  makes  faith  in  the  service  of  man, 
I  might  trust  the  good  Providence  for  the  re- 
sult. And  through  all  the  years  since,  from 
time  to  time,  I  have  had  cause  to  thank  God  and 
take  courage  from  the  men  and  women  who  were 
at  that  Saratoga  Conference,  though  most  of 
[  138  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

their  faces  I  have  not  seen  since,  nor  can  I  hope 
to  see  them  again  on  earth. 

After  so  many  years  in  the  rural  districts  I 
felt  I  ought  to  make  a  determined  effort  in 
Shelbyville.  On  Sunday,  February  15,  1874,  I 
began  regular  preaching  in  the  old  court-house, 
Several  discouraging  attempts  had  been  made 
to  secure  a  hearing  at  this  place.  In  my  diary 
for  Monday,  February  22,  1869,  occurs  the 
following : 

"  A  muddy,  disagreeable  ride  to  the  court- 
house and  back  last  night.  About  a  dozen  were 
present.  They  listened  suspiciously  rather  than 
kindly.  Some  acted  as  if  they  had  gone  into 
the  wrong  pew  and  were  ashamed  of  it.  Next 
Sunday  I  shall  try  again  in  the  day  time." 

Accordingly  I  walked  five  miles  on  the  next 
Sunday  morning  to  the  court-house.  The  ap- 
pointment had  been  thoroughly  advertised.  A 
short  time  before  the  hour  for  services  one  man 
looked  in  at  the  door,  and  on  being  told  there 
would  be  preaching  if  anyone  came  to  hear, 
said  perhaps  he'd  come  around  again  after 
awhile,  and  he  went  away.  That  fellow  lived 
in  the  district  where  I  had  been  holding  meet- 
ings, and  had  come  to  Shelbyville  on  Saturday, 
and  had  got  so  drunk  he  couldn't  get  home  that 
[  139  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

night,  and  so  was  on  hand,  to  a  small  extent,  that 
Sunday  morning.  I  waited  until  nearly  twelve 
o'clock,  but  the  man  not  returning  and  no  one 
else  coming,  I  turned  my  steps  homeward  some- 
what cast  down,  but  determined  to  try  it  again. 
Occasional  efforts  were  made  during  the  next 
five  years,  but  were  not  very  successful.  But 
now,  in  1874,  I  determined  that  if  the  audience 
averaged  no  more  than  one  dozen,  and  though 
the  minister  had  to  be  his  own  janitor,  and 
pay  all  incidental  expenses,  he  would  neverthe- 
less stick  to  it  for  one  year.  At  the  first 
meeting  there  were  about  two  dozen  persons 
present,  and  the  audiences  gradually  increased. 
A  number  of  the  members  of  my  congregations 
in  the  country  came  in  and  helped.  Unexpected 
friends  arose.  A  small  Sunday-school  was  or- 
ganized in  the  spring  of  1874,  and  rapidly  in- 
creased in  number  and  interest.  The  Church  of 
the  Disciples,  Boston,  Dr.  James  Freeman 
Clarke,  pastor,  sent  us  a  donation  of  books  for 
the  Sunday-school  library.  Then  our  old 
singing  teacher,  Mr.  Jacob  C.  Smith,  the  same 
who  had  got  acquainted  with  me  in  the  country 
work,  came  over  from  Marshall,  Illinois,  and 
taught  one  of  his  popular  singing-schools  in 
the  court-house  during  May,  1874,  closing  with 
[  140  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

a  jubilee  concert,  and  giving  part  of  the  pro- 
ceeds for  purchase  of  an  organ  for  the  society. 

On  Thursday  evening,  May  13,  1875,  at  a 
meeting  held  in  the  court-house,  thirteen  per- 
sons united  in  a  church  organization.  Novem- 
ber 1,  1875,  the  members  had  increased  to 
twenty-one  persons.  During  the  month  of 
February,  1876,  real  revival  meetings  were  com- 
menced at  the  court-house,  continuing  with 
unabated  interest  every  night  for  eight  weeks. 
Elder  John  Ellis,  of  whom  I  have  spoken  on 
another  page,  assisted  in  this  memorable  re- 
vival. 

I  believe  that  protracted  effort  was  what 
Theodore  Parker  would  call  "  A  True  Revival 
of  Religion."  The  result  was  certainly  ethical. 
I  think  I  may  say  the  key-note  of  the  meet- 
ings was  struck  by  Jenkin  Lloyd  Jones,  who 
preached  in  the  old  court-house  a  while  before 
the  meetings  began.  His  sermon  was  very 
practical  and  enthusiastic.  It  caused  the  dry 
bones  to  shake. 

The  final  result  was  a  church  of  seventy-five 
members  of  the  unchurched  and  mostly  poor 
people  of  Shelbyville,  with  several  of  the 
county  officers.  Many  had  been  hard  drinkers. 
One  had  been  a  saloon  keeper  for  forty  years. 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

A  few  years  before,  in  his  saloon,  when  I  called 
to  notify  him  that  I  would  prosecute  him  for 
letting  my  father  have  whiskey  contrary  to  law, 
in  order  to  intimidate  me  he  made  a  pass  to 
break  my  head  with  a  whiskey  glass.  But  he 
was  "  cooled  off  "  instantly  by  a  "  few  pointed 
words "  and  a  movement  to  "  make  good " 
from  my  now  sainted  brother  George,  who  was 
with  me  and  who  was  of  size,  nerve  and  force 
enough  to  command  respect,  though  he  was  still 
a  mere  boy.  It  was  the  only  time  I  ever  saw  my 
brother  thoroughly  angry.  Now  this  man  con- 
sulted with  me  as  to  the  disposition  to  make  of 
his  stock  of  liquors,  and  was  my  faithful  friend 
and  helper  until  his  death.  He  was  punctual 
at  church  and  took  a  great  pride  in  being  the 
first  one  at  the  annual  day-dawn  Easter  services, 
of  which  I  believe  he  attended  every  one  until 
he  was  called  to  the  everlasting  Easter  morn. 

One  of  the  prime  movers  in  building  the  Uni- 
tarian Church  in  Shelbyville,  and  a  most  gen- 
erous supporter  of  the  mission  in  his  last  years, 
was  one  of  the  most  beloved  and  trusted  of 
public  officials.  His  grandfather  won  honor 
as  a  soldier  of  the  Revolution  and  lived  to  be 
over  eighty  years  ,  old.  This  man  might  have 
been  Governor  of  Illinois  or  held  some  other 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

high  position  if  he  had  not  fallen  a  victim  in 
the  prime  of  life  to  the  social  glass.  This  man 
came  among  the  first  to  hear  the  preaching  at 
the  old  court-house  in  Shelbyville,  and  wel- 
comed with  joy  as  a  new  found  treasure  the 
Unitarian  gospel.  He  exclaimed :  "  That  is 
what  I  have  always  thought,  but  never  heard 
preached  before !  I  want  to  join  that  church." 
And  he  did  so,  in  good  earnest,  though  he  had 
been  during  the  Civil  War  strongly  opposed 
to  my  politics.  Then  he  told  me  privately  of 
his  weakness.  He  did  not  tell  everybody,  but 
he  told  me  more  than  I  felt  at  liberty  to  relate 
until  his  warfare  on  earth  was  over. 

I  remember  well  on  the  same  night  after 
he  signed  the  church  covenant,  at  the  old  court- 
house, he  asked  me  to  walk  alone  with  him, 
and  said :  "  Douthit,  I  am  in  a  worse  way  than 
most  people  think ;  you  don't  know  it  all.  You 
don't  know  how  hard  it  is  for  me  to  resist  when 
old  friends  ask  me  to  drink.  I'm  going  to  have 
a  desperate  struggle,  and  I  will  need  all  the  help 
I  can  get.  But  I  have  enlisted  for  the  war  and 
am  determined  to  stick  if  you'll  stick  by  me." 
I  replied :  "  Yes,  my  dear  fellow,  I  will  stick 
by  you  so  long  as  you  will  let  me;  I  will  stick 
by  you  in  this  world  and  the  next,  if  God  will 
[  143  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

let  me,  and  I  believe  He  will."  "  Douthit,"  he 
said,  "  I  would  give  all  I  am  worth  in  this  world, 
if  I  might  have  heard  forty  years  ago,  the  words 
of  warning  and  the  gospel  which  I  have  heard 
within  the  last  few  years." 

I  think  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the 
first  Congregational  (Unitarian)  Church  of 
Shelbyville  would  never  have  been  built  if  it  had 
not  been  for  that  man,  William  A.  Cochran. 
He  was  a  most  loyal  member  to  the  last.  In 
the  line  of  church  charities  and  expenses,  he  al- 
ways led  the  subscription.  By  his  personal  in- 
fluence, he  brought  many  of  his  friends  to 
church  with  him,  and  the  people  elected  him 
and  re-elected  him  clerk  of  the  Circuit  Court 
until  his  death. 

This  man  was  a  good  listener,  and  he  never 
got  offended  at  the  preacher  who  was  some- 
times, perhaps,  too  personal  and  practical.  He 
often  expressed  to  me  the  joy  it  was  to  him  to 
be  able  to  give  to  the  church,  and  when  he  lost 
large  sums  of  money,  he  would  say  to  me,  "  I 
wish  I  had  given  that  to  the  church,  for  then 
I  would  have  had  no  regrets." 

I  have  said  in  the  pulpit,  and  will  repeat  here, 
that  if  the  little  church  in  Shelbyville  has  been 
the  means  of  saving  even  one  man  like  William 
[  144  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

A.  Cochran,  to  such  heroic  effort  for  reform, 
and  thus  redeemed  his  life,  then  the  church  is 
worth  all  it  has  cost  of  toil  and  money.  The 
great  question  of  the  Master  should  ever  be  in 
mind :  "  What  doth  it  profit  a  man  though  he 
gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul?  " 

The  Shelbyville  church,  costing  six  thousand 
dollars,  was  built  two  blocks  from  the  old  court- 
house, and  was  paid  for  and  dedicated  within 
the  year.  The  corner-stone  was  laid  on  Mon- 
day, November  2,  1875.  Rev.  Benjamin  Mills, 
pastor  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  Rev.  Theo- 
dore Brooks,  pastor  of  the  Christian  Church, 
and  Elder  John  Ellis  assisted  in  the  ceremonies. 
On  May  8,  1876,  the  dedication  exercises 
were  held,  Rev.  James  Freeman  Clarke,  D.D., 
preaching  the  sermon  of  the  morning;  and  in 
the  evening  of  the  same  day  I  was  installed  as 
pastor  of  the  congregation,  Rev.  W.  G.  Eliot 
preaching  the  sermon.  Dr.  John  H.  Heywood, 
Rev.  F.  L.  Hosmer,  Elder  John  Ellis  and  the 
Rabbi  Sonnenschein  of  St.  Louis,  assisted  in  the 
ceremonies  of  installation  and  dedication. 

In  the  spring  of  1875  we  left  the  little  home 

and  farm  in  the  country  and  moved  to  Shelby- 

ville,  and  two  years  later  to  the  substantial  brick 

dwelling  next  door  to  the  church,  since  known  as 

[    145   ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

the  Unitarian  parsonage.  Here  has  been  my 
home  for  over  thirty  years.  While  I  felt  that 
for  the  good  of  the  mission  the  change  must  be 
made,  I  foresaw  that  it  would  make  the  ever 
present  financial  problem  more  difficult  for  us. 
In  my  humble  cottage  in  the  country,  near  my 
brothers  and  other  relatives,  with  my  little  farm 
and  garden,  expenses  were  small  and  the  problem 
of  how  to  live  could  be  more  easily  met  in  case 
of  insufficient  salary  or  failing  strength  which 
might  render  me  unable  to  work.  But  the  reso- 
lution of  the  Saratoga  Conference  of  1874  and 
the  surprising  success  of  the  effort  in  Shelby- 
ville  later,  encouraged  me  to  risk  all.  I  knew 
it  would  be  a  hard  tug,  for  I  could  not  but  be 
mindful  of  the  inherent  weakness  of  the  organ- 
ization in  a  financial  way.  The  members  were 
mostly  poor  people  on  the  move,  and  Shelby- 
ville  is  an  old  town  of  only  three  thousand 
population  and  ten  churches.  But  I  put  all 
the  energy  and  life  I  could  into  the  work  and 
refused  to  be  discouraged  by  obstacles. 

There  is  one  experience  of  my  ministry  in 
those  years  that  lingers  in  memory,  as  about  my 
only  real  vacation.  It  was  the  summer  of  the 
Philadelphia  Centennial  year.  I  had  become  so 
worn  by  the  continuous  strain  incident  to  the 
[  146  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

pioneer  church  work  that  I  could  hardly  walk  a 
hundred  yards  without  stopping  to  rest.  After 
the  church  dedication,  it  was  somehow  made  pos- 
sible for  me  to  take  my  wife  and  four  children 
to  visit  with  her  people  near  Boston  and  not 
worry  about  the  expense.  While  there  we  spent 
some  weeks  in  a  cottage  on  the  sea  shore,  but 
I  did  not  gain  as  fast  as  it  seemed  I  ought. 
I  had  read  Starr  King's  charming  book  about 
the  White  Mountains  and  longed  to  be  there. 
Born  and  reared  on  the  prairie,  I  had  had  no 
experience  of  mountains.  I  was  persuaded  to 
go  there  alone  for  a  week  in  August,  1876. 
The  train  arrived  at  Bethlehem,  N.  H.,  near 
Mt.  Agassiz,  late  in  the  evening.  The  altitude 
had  changed  the  temperature  for  me  from 
August  to  a  cool  October.  There  was  a 
blazing  fire  in  the  fireplace  at  the  hotel,  and 
a  cheerful  company  of  strangers  chatting 
pleasantly  around  the  fire.  I  slept  sweetly  and 
next  morning  after  breakfast  thought  to  take 
a  stroll  a  short  way  up  Mt.  Agassiz;  but  I 
kept  on  and  on  until  I  had  climbed  to  the  top, 
and  when  I  came  down  was  astonished  not  to 
feel  weary. 

Learning  that  Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  at 
the  Twin  Mountain  House,  near  the  foot  of  Mt. 
[   147   ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

Washington,  I  resolved  to  go  there  and  stay 
a  few  days.  I  engaged  lodging  at  a  farm 
house  near  by.  While  at  the  railroad  station 
one  day,  as  a  passing  train  stopped,  I  heard 
a  cheery  voice  from  the  cars  call  my  name  and 
say,  "  Am  glad  to  see  you  here."  It  was  the 
voice  of  William  H.  Baldwin,  President  of  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Union,  of  Boston.  He 
was  not  to  stop  there  but  he  jumped  off  the 
train  hurriedly  and  said :  "  I  want  you  to 
meet  my  friend  Beecher.  Let  me  write  you  an 
introduction,"  and  he  hastily  wrote  in  pencil 
on  a  card  kindly  commending  me  to  the  famous 
preacher.  That  was  just  like  President  Bald- 
win, as  every  one  will  say  who  knows  him.  I 
had  been  a  subscriber  to  Mr.  Beecher's  paper, 
the  Christian  Union,  from  the  first  number,  and 
had  read  his  sermons  for  many  years. 

I  found  Mr.  Beecher  at  the  hotel  engaged  in 
a  game  of  croquet  with  Mrs.  Mary  A.  Liver- 
more  and  her  husband,  Rev.  Daniel  P.  Liver- 
more,  the  Universalist  minister.  I  presented  my 
card  of  introduction  when  Mr.  Beecher  was 
through  playing.  He  greeted  me  cordially, 
and  among  other  things  remarked  that  Mr. 
Baldwin  was  a  grand,  good  man  doing  a  noble 
work  in  Boston.  He  said  the  bigotry  of  the 
[  148  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

Young  Men's  Christian  Association  in  ex- 
cluding Unitarians  and  Universalists  caused  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Union  to  be  organized 
with  Mr.  Baldwin  as  president.  "  I  am  glad 
to  know,"  continued  Mr.  Beecher,  "  the  move- 
ment is  growing  rapidly  in  public  favor  as  it 
well  deserves."  When  I  told  Mr.  Beecher  that 
I  had  read  him  for  years  and  admired  and 
loved  him  because  he  had  done  so  much  to  save 
me  from  religious  unbelief,  he  dropped  his  head 
and  said  in  a  serious  tone :  "  Well,  such  testi- 
mony helps  me  to  better  bear  the  unjust  criti- 
cism of  which  I  have  had  to  suffer  a  good  deal 
lately." 

He  invited  me  to  see  him  any  time  at  his 
room  and  I  had  pleasant  and  profitable  inter- 
views with  him  during  the  week.  He  expressed 
kindly  interest  in  my  work  and  said,  "  If  you 
need  any  books  or  any  help  anyway  let  me 
know."  I  thanked  him,  but  felt  that  his  sym- 
pathy and  friendship  were  all  I  deserved,  and 
never  asked  for  anything  more.  I  heard  him 
preach  on  Sunday  a  memorable  sermon  on  the 
"  Joys  of  the  Christian  Life."  It  became 
known,  I  suspect  through  Mr.  Beecher,  that  I 
was  a  minister  and  interested  in  temperance  re- 
form. I  was  invited  to  speak  on  temperance 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

one  Saturday  evening  at  the  Town  House  and 
then  accepted  an  invitation  to  preach  the  next 
day,  Sunday,  evening.  I  was  greatly  surprised 
to  have  my  message  received  with  such  favor, 
but  still  more  surprised,  and  also  amused,  to  find 
that  some  of  the  farmers  mistook  me  for  Mr. 
Beecher.  It  had  been  rumored  that  he  was  to 
preach  there  at  that  time  and  people  had  come 
from  miles  around  to  hear  him.  I  certainly 
did  not  in  the  least  resemble  the  great  preacher. 
But  the  most  remarkable  experience  of  all  to 
me  was  the  marvelous  uplift  in  physical  vigor. 
I  had  been  there  but  a  few  days  before  I  ch'mbed 
on  foot  five  miles  or  more  over  rugged  steeps 
to  the  summit  of  Mt.  Washington  and  returned 
the  same  day.  This  sudden  recovery  of 
strength  was  the  most  remarkable  experience  of 
the  kind  in  my  life.  On  reaching  the  summit 
I  was  overcome  with  awe  and  felt  that  I  must 
fall  down  and  worship.  The  summit  was 
covered  with  snow.  For  scores  of  miles  around 
I  beheld  mountains  and  valleys  and  rivers  and 
villages  that  seemed  as  clusters  of  toy  houses. 
The  Atlantic  Ocean  glimmered  in  the  sunlight 
nearly  one  hundred  miles  in  the  distance.  I 
read  in  silence  some  passages  of  scripture  with 
new  meaning :  "  Great  and  marvelous  are  thy 
[  150  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

works,  Lord  God  Almighty."  "  Before  the 
mountains  were  brought  forth,  or  ever  thou 
had'st  formed  the  earth  and  the  world,  even 
from  everlasting  to  everlasting,  thou  art  God." 
"  Lead  me  unto  the  Rock  that  is  higher  than 
I."  "  Thou  art  my  Rock  and  my  Salvation." 
While  I  was  thus  reading,  a  stranger  perched 
on  a  great  rock  above  me  suddenly  broke  out  in 
a  loud  voice  with  scripture  quotations  followed 
with  a  hymn  like  "  Rock  of  Ages,"  and  all  the 
people  round  about  stood  still  and  silent  as  if 
enchanted.  That  scene  and  day,  August  23, 
1876,  linger  bright  in  memory  as  the  close  of 
the  last  real  vacation  and  the  most  inspiring 
experience  in  my  life.  Fresh  power  came  to 
me  to  will  to  be,  and  to  do  more  and  better 
than  ever.  I  resolved  then  that  for  the  sake 
of  preparation  for  more  and  better  work  I 
would  make  a  pilgrimage  to  that  altar  of  the 
Most  High  every  few  years,  the  rest  of  my 
life.  The  resolution  has  never  been  kept. 
Meager  means  and  fidelity  to  nearer  duty  have 
prevented. 


XI 


A  temperance  crusade  had  been  started  by 
our  meetings  at  the  court-house,  and  kept  up 
when  we  moved  to  the  church,  so  that  when 
the  so-called  Blue  Ribbon  Crusade  swept  over 
the  country  the  meetings  in  Shelbyville  natur- 
ally started  in  our  church,  and  then  moved  to 
the  largest  audience  room  in  town.  For  forty- 
two  nights  in  succession  we  held  crowded  houses, 
until  it  seemed  that  nearly  every  man  and 
woman  in  Shelbyville  and  vicinity  was  wearing 
a  blue  ribbon  as  a  token  of  having  signed  the 
pledge  of  total  abstinence.  I  plunged  into  this 
work  with  all  my  might,  regardless  of  my  limita- 
tions of  strength  and  heedless  of  consequences. 
I  was  borne  on  by  the  wave  of  enthusiasm  that 
everywhere  prevailed.  At  the  close  of  those 
meetings  early  in  the  year  of  1878,  I  was 
prostrate  for  six  weeks. 

A  woman  physician,  Dr.  Petrie,  from 
New  York  state,  happened  in  town,  and 
learning  of  my  case,  kindly  came  to  see  me  as 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

I  lay  helpless.  She  looked  at  me  and  said: 
"  I  have  a  message  from  heaven  for  you. 
You  think  you  will  die,  but  you  will  not.  But 
if  you  don't  stop  so  much  speaking  night  after 
night  you  will  become  a  miserable,  chronic 
wreck  and  useless  the  rest  of  your  life."  The 
message  deeply  impressed  me.  I  took  the  ad- 
vice. I  wish  I  knew  the  address  to-day  of  the 
good  messenger  so  that  I  might  express  to  her 
my  gratitude  for  the  timely,  wise  warning  that 
has  helped  me  to  keep  a  frail  body  in  fair 
working  condition  for  thirty  years  longer  than 
I  expected.  I  was  compelled,  however,  to  give 
up  the  work  of  a  circuit  preacher  and  confine 
my  labor  to  places  near  home.  Thenceforward 
I  gave  myself  more  to  local  preaching  and 
Post-office  Misson  work,  the  latter  finally,  for 
the  most  part  through  Our  Best  Words.  I 
edited  and  printed  this  paper  first  as  a  parish 
paper,  in  1880,  and  then  for  a  year  more  as  a 
missionary  monthly,  jointly  with  Dr.  Charles 
G.  Ames,  then  minister  in  Philadelphia. 

I  have  always  believed  in  proclaiming  my 
message  from  the  house-tops  —  that  is,  in  ad- 
vertising and  in  spreading  the  principles 
which  I  have  felt  most  called  upon  to  preach. 
I  early  recognized  the  power  of  the  press 
[  153  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

as  an  ally  in  this  regard,  and  have  improved 
every  opportunity  to  enlist  the  services  of 
the  printed  word  in  my  work.  I  have 
been  a  contributor  to  the  local  press  most 
of  the  time  for  fifty  years,  beginning  as 
associate  editor  of  the  short-lived  Shelby 
County  Freeman,  the  first  Free  Soil  or  Repub- 
lican paper  started  in  this  region  of  Illinois. 
The  Union  was  established  in  1863  by  John  W. 
Johnson.  He  was  a  sort  of  Parson  Brownlow 
editor,  and  a  terror  to  "  Copperheads,"  and  his 
columns  were  always  open  for  anything  I  wished 
to  say.  Several  of  my  sermons  on  the  war 
were  published  in  the  Union.  In  1868  the  late 
Capt.  Park  T.  Martin,  of  Danville,  Illinois,  be- 
came editor  and,  in  part,  proprietor  of  the 
Union,  and  invited  me  to  edit  "  The  Preaching 
Corner,"  of  three  columns,  more  or  less.  This 
I  did  for  the  year  1870 ;  and  I  continued  to  con- 
tribute often  to  the  local  press  thereafter. 
With  a  few  rare  and  conspicuous  exceptions 
during  the  Civil  War  and  in  my  early  anti- 
saloon  crusade,  I  have  been  treated  with  marked 
courtesy  and  even  generosity  by  the  editorial 
fraternity.  Many  local  newspapers  exchange 
with  Our  Best  Words,  and  the  local  press  in  this 
and  adjoining  counties  and  the  reform  press 
[  154  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

over  the  state  and  nation  have  been  especially 
kind  and  generous  in  their  notices  of  my  work 
at  Lithia  Springs. 

In  the  several  local  histories  of  Shelby 
County,  large,  costly  volumes,  I  have  been  solic- 
ited to  write  accounts  of  the  Unitarian  Mission 
and  have  been  given  ample  space  in  these  sub- 
stantial records  of  local  history  to  tell  of  our 
gospel  and  the  effort  to  spread  its  principles 
here.  These  volumes  are  in  the  homes  of  the 
prominent  families  in  every  township  in  the 
county,  and  will  be  conned  over  again  and  again 
by  coming  generations. 

From  the  time  it  was  established  in  1880, 
twenty-eight  years  ago,  Our  Best  Words  has 
had  a  circulation  varying  from  five  hundred  to 
ten  thousand  copies.  The  paper  has  been  read 
by  hundreds  of  ministers  and  editors  of  all  sects 
and  parties.  These  have  learned  through  its 
pages  truths  and  facts,  especially  about  Unita- 
rians, that  they  probably  would  never  have 
otherwise  known.  I  think  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  without  some  such  printed  messen- 
ger this  mission  could  not  have  had  half  the 
influence  in  making  known  our  principles  of 
freedom,  fellowship  and  character  in  religion ; 
and  I  am  quite  sure  Lithia  Springs  Chautauqua 
C  155  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 


could  not  have  been  possible.  Through  the 
reading  of  this  little  paper,  several  persons  at  a 
distance  have  expressed  the  desire  to  become 
identified  with  the  Unitarian  church,  —  persons 
who  have  not  before  learned  of  any  church  they 
could  honestly  join.  The  editing  and  pub- 
lishing of  the  paper  has  been  a  labor  of  love 
with  me,  and  despite  the  defects  and  drawbacks, 
the  work  upon  it  has  been  a  pleasant  diversion 
and  has  often  proved  a  rest  from  greater  cares ; 
so  that,  on  the  whole,  it  has  been  to  me  about 
the  most  satisfactory  feature  of  my  missionary 
service.  Without  such  winged  words,  I  should 
feel  like  a  disarmed  soldier  in  battle. 

In  connection  with  editorial  work  on  Our 
Best  Words  for  twenty  years  past,  my  son, 
George  L.  Douthit,  and  I  have  published,  be- 
sides various  tracts  and  pamphlets,  the  fol- 
lowing books,  most  of  which  I  have  edited: 
"  Shelby  Seminary  Memorial,"  Illustrated, 
cloth,  116  pages;  "Out  of  Darkness  Into 
Light ;"  "  The  Journal  of  a  Bereaved  Mother," 
by  Mrs.  M.  A.  Deane,  cloth,  400  pages ;  and 
"  The  Life  Story  and  Personal  Reminiscences 
of  Col.  John  Sobieski,"  Illustrated,  cloth,  400 
pages. 

When  partly  recovered  from  that  long  pros- 
[  156  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

tration,  occasioned  by  overwork  during  the  Blue 
Ribbon  Crusade  meetings,  I  began  war  against 
the  snares  and  stumbling-blocks  in  the  way  of 
those  who  had  taken  the  pledge  and  joined  the 
church  in  an  effort  to  reform.     These  were  the 
open  door  of  the  licensed  dram-shop,  the  corrupt 
politics,  and  the  treating  customs  of  the  par- 
tisan bosses  and  the  candidates  for  office.     This 
custom  was  so  deeply  rooted  and  of  such  long 
standing  that  the  majority   of  voters   in  both 
parties    regarded   it    as    necessary   for  success. 
"  Of  course  no  man  can  be  elected  to  office  in 
this  county  unless  he  sets  up  the  drinks  freely. 
You  have  got  to  do  it  or  be  beaten."     That 
was  the  stereotyped  reply  of  political  candidates 
when  I  began  to  plead  with  them.     Even  some 
members  of  my  congregation  would  insist  that 
they  had  to  do   it,  and  persisted  in  the  face 
of  my  solemn  protest.     I  saw  no  more  effective 
method   of  working   than   to    publicly    expose 
through  Our  Best  Words  every  clearly  known 
case   of   a    candidate   setting  up    drinks   while 
electioneering  for  office.     I  gave  warning  pub- 
licly that   I  would   publish  the   names   of  any 
and  all  candidates  who  treated  voters  to  liquor. 
It  was   done,  but   it   was   a   most   painful   ex- 
perience.    The   saloon   was   in   politics,   and  I 
[  157  ] 


enlisted  for  the  war  to  drive  it  out.  Neither 
of  the  political  parties  would  tackle  the  giant, 
nor  whisper  a  word  against  it  in  their  platforms 
or  party  organs.  By  the  help  of  Mrs.  Ada  H. 
Kepley,  of  Effingham  County,  a  member  of  my 
Shelbyville  congregation,  and  about  a  dozen 
Free  Methodists,  at  the  court-house.  May  29, 
1886,. the  Prohibition  party  had  been  organized, 
and  I  warmly  espoused  the  cause.  But  this 
political  activity  was  a  most  troublous  and 
costly  business  to  me.  My  salary  was  cut  down 
and  some  friends  at  home  and  abroad  turned 
away.  My  printing  press  would  probably  have 
been  burned  but  for  the  fact  that  it  was  in  a 
third  story  where  fire  could  not  consume  it  with- 
out putting  a  whole  block  in  ashes. 

Thanks  to  the  efforts  of  Rev.  J.  T.  Sunder- 
land,  Rev.  John  H.  Heywood,  Dr.  James  De 
Normandie  and  other  friends,  I  was  enabled  to 
live  and  continue  the  battle,  which  went  on  till 
the  snake  was  scotched  if  not  killed.  At  least  it 
has  since  been  possible  for  men  to  be  elected 
to  office  in  Shelby  County  who  do  not  bribe 
voters  with  liquor.  The  saloons  were  driven 
out  of  Shelbyville,  and  my  printing  office  was 
moved  into  the  room  on  the  corner  of  the  public 
square  where  one  of  the  largest  and  most  pop- 
[  158  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

ular  saloons  had  been  kept.  Our  Best  Words 
had  become  a  weekly,  with  the  largest  circula- 
tion of  any  paper  in  the  county,  and  by  a 
combination  with  the  Farmers'  Mutual  Benefit 
Association  and  similar  movements,  we  came 
very  near  electing  at  one  time,  1890,  an  anti- 
saloon  ticket  in  the  county.  And  yet,  notwith- 
standing my  outspokenness  for  over  fifty-six 
years  against  their  business,  I  am  often  called 
upon  to  officiate  at  the  funerals  of  saloon 
keepers  or  members  of  their  families.  My 
friend,  Senator  Chafee,  once  made  the  public 
statement  that  no  other  preacher  in  town  is 
called  on  oftener  to  serve  at  the  funerals  of  dead 
drunkards.  Saloon  keepers  have  of  late  years 
treated  me  with  courtesy.  The  only  instance 
I  recall  to  the  contrary,  besides  the  one  already 
given  in  this  story,  is  of  a  saloon  keeper  who 
took  occasion,  on  meeting  me  in  a  friend's  office, 
to  speak  insultingly  to  me,  and  abuse  me  because 
of  my  criticism  of  saloons.  I  expostulated  with 
him  and  told  him  that  his  father  and  mother 
in  heaven,  who  were  my  old  friends,  would  be 
grieved  to  have  him  treat  me  so,  and  that  he 
ought  to  quit  his  bad  business  and  become  a 
better  man ;  that  I  meant  only  kindness  to  him. 
Imagine  my  surprise  when,  in  less  than  two 
[  159  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

weeks  afterward,  that  man  was  converted,  joined 
the  church  of  his  choice,  and  sent  me  a  special 
invitation  to  be   present   at   his   baptism.     He 
quit  the  saloon  business  and  remained  a  consist- 
ent church  member  the  rest  of  his  life.     It  is 
one    of    the    strangest,    most    astonishing    ex- 
periences  of  my  life,  that  so  very   many   who 
have  been  most  bitter  in  their  abuse  of  me  have 
come  to  be  among  the  most  faithful  friends. 
But  I  was  in  a  cross-fire  on  the  one  hand  be- 
cause of  my  aggressive  temperance  work,  and 
on  the  other  because  of  my  Unitarianism.     Sev- 
eral of  the  ablest  friends  of  the  mission  at  home 
and   abroad   had   died.     Many   of   our  church 
members    had    gone    away.     My    salary    grew 
smaller,  so  that  I  felt  for  the  time  I  must  either 
give  up  the  paper  or  give  up  my  home  and  the 
mission.     At  that  time  a  stranger  came  to  me 
with  a  tempting  price  to  buy  my  paper,  and  in 
February,  1892,  I  sold  out,  but  with  the  distinct 
understanding  that  Our  Best  Words  would  be 
continued  in  the  same  line  of  battle.     I   was 
deceived.     It  soon  became  an  organ  of  the  Pop- 
ulists.    I  was  worn  down  again,  and  a  season 
of  sad  reverses  followed.     Then,  after  a  year 
or  so,  in  which  saloons  again  came  into  Shelby- 
ville,  a  few   friends   rallied  to   my   aid;  and   I 
[  160  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHTFS  STORY 

began  to  publish  in  April,  1893,  a  small 
monthly  paper,  Simple  Truth,  and  finally  re- 
purchased Our  Best  Words,  in  October,  1894. 
Then  the  Unitarians  near  Lithia  Springs,  some 
of  whom  had  worshiped  at  Oak  Grove  Chapel, 
went  to  work  and  built  another  church  near 
where  the  Log  Church  stood,  and  right  by  the 
graves  of  my  father  and  mother.  This  was 
called  Jordan  Unitarian  Church.  The  church 
was  dedicated  July  24,  1892,  free  from  debt. 
I  never  consented  to  have  a  church  dedicated 
otherwise.  My  dear  friend,  Rev.  John  H.  Hey- 
wood  of  Louisville,  and  Rev.  T.  B.  Forbush, 
then  the  zealous  western  superintendent  of  the 
American  Unitarian  Association,  and  others 
assisted. 

My  wife  and  I  felt  greatly  honored  and 
blessed  to  have,  during  years  before  their  trans- 
lation, the  hearty  sympathy  and  kind  co-opera- 
tion of  such  saintly  women  as  Miss  Elizabeth 
G.  Huidekoper,  mentioned  elsewhere  in  this 
story ;  Miss  Dorothea  Dix,  the  famous  American 
philanthropist;  Mrs.  Martha  P.  Lowe,  wife  of 
Charles  Lowe,  the  much  loved  Secretary  over 
thirty  years  ago,  of  the  American  Unitarian  As- 
sociation, and  Miss  Elizabeth  P.  Channing, 
niece  of  the  immortal  Doctor  Channing.  The 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

cheerful  letters  which  these  women  frequently 
wrote  us  through  twenty-five  years  or  more, 
bring  to  mind,  as  I  write,  some  of  the  happiest 
recollections  of  my  life,  —  but  the  happiness  is 
lessened  by  the  thought  that  I  ought  to  have 
been  a  better  man  and  accomplished  more  good 
when  favored  with  the  friendships  of  such  noble 
women.  Miss  Channing  gave  me,  a  few  years 
before  her  death,  what  I  prize  as  one  of  the 
most  precious  treasures, —  an  autograph  letter 
of  her  distinguished  uncle.  The  letter  is  most 
tenderly  consoling  for  the  bereaved,  especially 
for  all  who  have  lost  good  mothers. 
Here  is  a  copy  of  Dr.  Channing's  letter : 

"NEWPORT,  Sept.  25th,  1837. 
"  My  Dear  Elizabeth, — 

"  I  sympathize  with  you  in  your  great  loss, 
for  great  it  is  to  you,  though  I  trust  it  is  un- 
speakable gain  to  your  departed  friend.  I  was 
not  at  all  surprised  to  hear  of  your  mother's 
death;  grief  and  increasing  infirmity  had  long 
been  leading  her  toward  the  grave,  and  now  we 
trust  her  wounded  spirit  is  at  rest.  I  never 
knew  a  more  tender  heart.  She  not  only  felt 
her  bereavements  most  keenly,  but  was  exqui- 
sitely alive  to  the  sufferings  of  her  fellow  crea- 
tures. Few  fulfilled  as  she  did  the  law  of  '  bear- 
ing others'  burdens.'  What  deep  sympathy, 
what  deepest  solicitude,  what  never  wearied 
[  162  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

kindness  have  you  experienced  from  her  from 
the  first  hour  of  life.  What  can  equal  in  con- 
stancy and  disinterestedness  a  mother's  love! 
In  losing  such  a  friend  we  lose  one  whose  place 
cannot  be  supplied.  You  must  be  grateful  that 
you  were  so  long  allowed  to  commune  with  the 
affectionate  spirit;  that  you  had  so  many  op- 
portunities of  testifying  your  gratitude;  that 
you  witnessed  so  much  desire,  amidst  her  trou- 
ble and  peculiar  sensibilities,  to  resign  herself 
to  the  Divine  Will.  You  must  feel  that  she 
died,  as  she  had  lived,  to  minister  to  you, —  to 
minister  to  the  spirit  by  carrying  your  thoughts 
upward  and  into  eternity.  Though  the  outward 
ear  cannot  hear  her  voice,  yet  '  she  speaketh.' 
Our  friends  whilst  they  lived  bound  us  to  earth. 
By  death  they  perform  a  more  blessed  office, 
they  may  lift  us  above  it.  I  hope  it  will  be  the 
effect  of  your  suffering, —  to  tranquilize  your 
mind,  to  diminish  the  power  of  shortlived  evil 
over  you,  to  give  you  fortitude  and  energy.  I 
beg  you  to  present  my  affectionate  remembrance 
to  your  sister.  My  love  to  George  and  the  chil- 
dren. Ruth  and  my  children  are  well  and  hold 
yours  in  affectionate  remembrance. 
"  Very  truly  and  affectionately, 
"  Yours, 

"  WM.  E.  CHANNING." 

In  the  beautiful  "  Autobiography  and 
Diary  "  of  the  late  Miss  E.  P.  Channing,  is  the 
following  record: 

[  163  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

"Sept.  14th,  1906  (?): — Gave  my  mite  to 
help  on  Mr.  Douthit's  mission,  I  think  the 
needed  five  thousand  will  be  raised,  and  the  apos- 
tle of  temperance,  who  has  disarmed  sectarian 
prejudice,  will  at  last  be  comforted  with  the 
thought  that  he  is  understood." 


[  164  ] 


XII 

My  first  printed  sermon  was  on  "  Unity  in 
Division."  It  appeared  in  the  Phrenological 
Journal,  about  forty  years  ago.  I  have 
always  been  more  eager  to  imbibe  the  spirit 
of  Jesus  and  impart  something  of  that  spirit 
to  others  than  to  make  people  take  my  denomi- 
national badge.  It  has  been  my  hobby,  so  to 
speak,  to  insist  upon  loyalty  to  conviction,  to 
respect  the  honest  convictions  of  others  and  re- 
joice in  the  good  they  may  do  that  I  cannot 
do.  I  am  glad  to  consider  myself  a  member  of 
the  church  universal  with  a  door  wide  open  as 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  from  which  nothing 
but  an  unchristian  spirit  can  exclude  me.  In  the 
beginning  of  my  mission,  I  had  preached  regu- 
larly at  the  old  Salem  school-house  for  a  long 
time  when  one  of  my  auditors,  the  late  Curtis 
Hornbeck,  Esq.,  father  of  Rev.  Marcus  D. 
Hornbeck,  now  a  prominent  Methodist  minister 
of  Denver,  Colorado,  said  to  me  one  day: 
"  Brother  Douthit,  you  are  the  queerest 
[  165  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

preacher  I  ever  knew.  Here  you  have  been 
preaching  for  two  years  and  have  never  once 
given  any  of  us  a  chance  to  join  the  church.  If 
you  had,  myself  and  wife  and  all  my  family 
would  have  joined,  but  now  we  have  joined 
another  church." 

I  am  convinced  that  as  a  rule  it  is  better  for 
people  to  become  members  of  some  church  than 
to  be  habitual  non-church  goers,  or  religious 
tramps.  I  have  observed  that  children  of  Prot- 
estant families  who  have  united  with  the  Catho- 
lic church  have  been  better,  other  things  being 
equal,  than  the  children  of  Protestants  that 
grow  up  without  any  church  association.  Oft- 
times  when  I  have  been  going  many  miles  over 
bad  roads  to  meet  my  appointments,  I  have  met, 
going  or  coming,  Catholic  friends  who  must 
travel  long  distances  to  attend  their  morning 
services  at  church,  while  at  the  same  time,  some 
persons  calling  themselves  Unitarians,  who  lived 
near  church  and  who  would  go  twice  as  far  over 
bad  roads  on  week  days  to  serve  themselves  and 
for  pleasure,  were  absent  from  their  church  serv- 
ice because  of  the  bad  roads,  the  inclement 
weather,  a  Sunday  headache,  or  a  social  visit. 
For  the  fifty  years  I  have  been  preaching, 
I  never  knew  a  family,  to  the  best  of  my  knowl- 
[  166  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

edge  and  belief,  that  habitually  neglected 
church  duties  which  did  not  degenerate  in  morals 
and  manners,  and  become  worse  than  their 
fathers  and  mothers,  —  worse  even  though 
"  smart "  and  educated,  in  a  sense.  The  more 
respectable  such  persons,  the  more  mischievous 
their  examples  and  influence  on  society. 

"  There  are  two  freedoms,"  says  Charles 
Kingsley,  "  the  false,  where  a  man  is  free  to 
do  what  he  likes ;  the  true,  where  a  man  is  free 
to  do  what  he  ought." 

Non-observance  of  Sunday  and  the  non- 
church  going  habit  have  been  among  my  great- 
est causes  of  discouragement.  Out-spoken  op- 
position and  bitter  persecution  are  not  so  hurt- 
ful as  the  selfish  indifference  of  professed 
friends  of  a  good  cause. 

We  read  that  Jesus  "  went  into  the  synagogue 
on  the  Sabbath  day,  as  his  custom  was."  But 
I  have  found  many  people  who  profess  to  be 
sincere  followers  of  Christ  who  when  in 
distress  will  send  for  a  minister,  and  yet  who 
will  on  the  Sabbath  day  follow  a  custom 
directly  contrary  to  the  example  of  Jesus. 
They  will  substitute  visits  and  feasts  for  church- 
going.  Sometimes  people  use  Sunday  for  labor 
that  could  better  be  done  on  week  days,  and  they 
[  167  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

cannot  go  to  church  because  they  must  take 
an  ox  out  of  the  pit  which  they  put  in  on 
Saturday,  or  had  neglected  all  the  week  to  take 
out.  I  think  of  communities  destitute  of 
church  services  where  there  might  now  be 
flourishing  congregations  if  the  people  had 
formed  the  habit  of  attending  public  worship 
on  the  Sabbath.  I  write  with  deep  feeling 
on  this  subject.  My  mother  in  heaven  was 
during  much  of  her  life,  a  slave  to  the  kitchen 
on  Sunday,  cooking  over  a  hot,  open  fire- 
place, and  often  having  no  chajice  for  church 
or  rest.  Therefore,  for  many  years,  I  have 
made  it  a  rule  not  to  accept  invitations  to  din- 
ner on  Sunday  where  I  knew  some  of  the  family 
were  kept  from  church  to  prepare  it.  Not  that 
I  object  to  dinners  or  social  visits,  but  I  do 
earnestly  protest  against  the  discouraging, 
soul-starving  and  church-killing  habit  of 
staying  away  from  church  for  a  Sunday  pleas- 
ure excursion,  or  to  cook  and  eat;  or  to  trade 
or  do  any  work  that  could  as  well  be  done  some 
other  day.  In  fact  I  have  known  the  morals 
of  more  than  one  community  blighted  by  the 
habit  of  manual  labor  or  horse-racing  and  ball 
games  on  Sunday.  The  following  is  a  record 
of  the  diary  of  my  brother  George.  I  give 
[  168  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

it   as  illustrating  a   not  unusual   scene   in   the 
early  years  of  my  work: 

"Sunday,  June  16th,  1867:— I  went  with 
Jasper  to  Salem.  He  preached  about  a  man's 
social  nature, —  his  duty  of  cultivating  and  ex- 
ercising it  by  worshiping  God  together  on  Sun- 
days. The  folks  around  here  have  become  so  in- 
dustrious, it  would  seem,  that  they  have  no  time 
to  cultivate  anything,  unless  it  would  be  a  patch 
of  corn,  or  to  plant  any  kind  of  seed  on  the 
Sabbath,  except  corn.  There  are  eight  teams 
within  a  mile  of  here  at  work  today.  There 
would  appear  to  be  some  plausible  excuse  for 
working  to-day,  it  being  so  late  in  the  season. 
But  I  think  they  will  lose  more  than  they  will 
gain.  They  will  lower  their  moral  nature;  and 
in  the  very  act  of  doing  so  they  will  plant  seeds 
of  thorns  that  will  ultimately  grow  and  prick 
them  sore.  They  may  raise  better  corn;  but  if 
they  do,  it  will  be  so  much  the  worse,  it  will  be 
increasing  an  already  too  large  acquisitiveness 
at  the  expense  of  their  higher  nature." 

In  every  case  I  now  remember,  that  prophecy 
of  my  brother,  made  over  forty  years  ago  when 
he  was  nineteen  years  old,  has  proved  true. 
Yes,  "  God  made  the  Sabbath  for  man."  That 
is,  he  has  made  one  day  in  seven  for  man  to  use 
mostly  for  rest  and  public  worship,  —  made  this 
[  169  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

a  law  of  necessity  in  human  nature,  and  if  this 
law  is  violated  a  bitter  harvest  must  be  reaped 
sooner  or  later.  No  man  can  habitually  defy 
that  custom  of  Jesus  without  being  worse  for 
it. 

While  most  of  my  labors  have  been  in  this 
county  of  Shelby,  yet  in  the  early  years  I 
preached  in  the  towns  along  the  line  of  the 
Illinois  Central  Railroad,  main  trunk  and 
branch,  from  Decatur  and  Champaign  south- 
ward to  Centralia,  and  also  on  the  Indianapolis, 
Terre  Haute,  Alton  and  St.  Louis  line,  from 
Charleston  in  eastern  Illinois  to  Litchfield  in 
the  west.  The  managers  of  the  above  roads 
kindly  gave  me  free  passage. 

During  the  first  few  years  of  my  charge  in 
Shelby ville,  at  the  urgent  request  of  Dr.  E.  E. 
Hale  and  others,  I  tried  to  act  as  a  state  mis- 
sionary for  Illinois.  I  kept  up  the  services  in 
Shelby  County,  and  preached  also  in  Jackson- 
ville, Alton,  Hillsboro,  Pana,  Decatur,  Farina, 
Centralia,  Effingham,  Charleston,  Urbana  and 
Champaign,  the  seat  of  the  state  University. 
At  the  two  last  named  cities  I  had  the  hearty  co- 
operation of  the  then  president  of  the  Uni- 
versity, Dr.  Peabody,  and  others  of  the  Board 
of  Instruction.  But  I  broke  down  at  such 

[  no  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

work.  There  was  not  enough  of  me  to  go 
around.  Finally  I  concentrated  my  effort  in 
Shelbyville  and  the  vicinity,  using  Our  Best 
Words  as  an  arm  to  reach  out  to  the  acquaint- 
ances made  over  the  state.  I  felt  a  stronger  call 
to  preach  to  the  people  that  would  gather  to 
hear  me  in  the  school-houses  and  out-door 
meetings  in  the  vicinity  of  my  birthplace, 
though  certainly  money  was  never  an  element  of 
strength  to  this  call. 

This  home  mission  has  been  to  me  a  high 
calling  of  God.  I  have  by  invitation  preached 
in  churches  in  the  larger  cities  of  the  nation, 
such  as  Chicago,  Boston,  Cleveland,  Toledo, 
Columbus,  Cincinnati,  Indianapolis,  Detroit, 
Milwaukee,  St.  Louis,  Louisville,  New  Orleans, 
and  other  cities.  1  can  truthfully  say,  I  have 
never  anywhere  nor  at  any  time  felt  more  hon- 
ored before  God  than  in  preaching  to  Irish- 
Catholics  and  other  neighbors  at  Log  Church; 
and  never  have  felt  so  loud  a  call  anywhere  as  at 
places  like  the  old  whiskey-haunted  court- 
house in  Shelbyville. 

There  are  a  few  things  which  may  seem 
trifling  in  themselves  which  I  will  mention  as 
showing  the  progress  of  ideas  here  since  the 
mission  began  and  in  which  it  has  led. 


The  first  time  I  ever  saw  flowers  in  a  church 
in  Illinois  was  in  the  little  school-house  where 
we  first  held  Unitarian  services  before  we  had 
any  house  of  worship.  The  school-teacher, 
who  was  an  eastern  woman,  had  gathered  some 
crab-apple,  red-bud,  plum-tree  and  other  blos- 
soms, and  put  them  in  an  old  tin  can  on  the 
desk  in  front  of  me.  When  I  went  to  the  desk 
to  begin  services,  a  good  old  brother  from  the 
rear  of  the  house  came  up,  and  said,  "  I'll  put 
these  things  out  of  your  way."  Suiting  the 
action  to  the  words,  he  threw  the  buds  and 
blossoms  out  of  the  window,  and  put  the  can 
under  the  desk.  It  was  taken  as  a  matter  of 
course  by  the  assembly.  I  was  somewhat  em- 
barrassed, but  proceeded  with  the  service  as  well 
as  I  could.  This  incident  fitly  illustrates  the 
only  kind  of  theology  I  heard  until  I  was  seven- 
teen years  old,  —  a  theology  that  hid  the  bright 
things  of  earth  and  made  it  as  bare  and  for- 
bidding and  as  much  a  vale  of  tears  as  pos- 
sible. 

The  first  Easter  service  I  ever  knew  observed 
by  any  other  church  than  Catholics  was  by  our 
little  assembly  of  Unitarians.  In  commemora- 
tion of  the  first  Easter  morning  at  the  sepulchre, 
a  meeting  conducted  by  the  pastor  has  been  held 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

in  the  Unitarian  Church  in  Shelbyville,  every 
year  since  the  church  was  built  in  1876.  The 
first  Christmas  tree  that  I  ever  saw  in  Illinois 
was  in  the  Unitarian  Sunday-school.  The  first 
Thanksgiving  service  held  in  response  to  the 
President's  proclamation  in  Shelby  County,  out- 
side of  Shelbyville,  was  held  in  our  Oak  Grove 
Chapel.  We  held  services  of  mercy  and  dis- 
tributed Our  Dumb  Animals  for  years  before 
others  recognized  that  religion  had  enough 
bearing  on  kindness  to  animals  to  call  for  a 
special  service.  The  first  time  I  ever  knew  of 
"  Nearer  my  God  to  Thee  "  being  sung  in  this 
vicinity,  was  in  the  old  Log  Church  by  my 
brother  George,  who  had  been  at  Antioch  Col- 
lege and  had  brought  it  home  with  him.  The 
first  memorial  service  held  in  the  county  for 
a  Union  soldier  was  held  by  the  Unitarian  mis- 
sionary. 

I  remember  when  funeral  sermons  were 
preached  some  time  after  the  burial  it  was  cus- 
tomary to  sing,  "  Hark !  from  the  Tombs  a  Dole- 
ful Sound,"  but  I  have  not  heard  that  hymn 
for  forty  years.  Instead  they  sing  the  hymns 
and  songs  of  brighter  hope,  such  as  "  One 
Sweetly  Solemn  Thought,"  and  "  Lead  Kindly 
Light."  Now  flowers  provoke  sweet  thoughts 
[  173  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

in  all  the  churches;  and  many  of  them  have  a 
special  "  Flower  Service,"  and  vie  with  each 
other  in  celebrating  Easter  and  Christmas;  and 
we  have  had  union  Thanksgiving  services,  where 
Catholics,  Unitarians  and  orthodox  joined. 

I  have  tried  to  circulate  only  such  literature 
as  would  have  a  tendency  to  liberate  Christians 
and  Christianize  "  liberals."  The  result  has 
been  a  wonderful  change  in  the  attitude  of  the 
churches  of  all  denominations  in  the  vicinity, 
including  the  Catholic.  Some  of  my  best 
friends  have  been  the  orthodox  pastors  and  the 
Catholic  priests. 

We  have  built  in  this  mission  four  church 
edifices  in  Shelby  County,  the  largest  being  a 
substantial  brick  structure  costing  six  thousand 
dollars,  and  three  of  wood,  costing  eight  hun- 
dred dollars,  fifteen  hundred  dollars  and  twelve 
hundred  dollars  each,  besides  one  in  Mattoon 
costing  ten  thousand  dollars,  and  a  tabernacle 
at  Lithia  Springs  for  our  summer  meetings, 
seating  fifteen  hundred.  This  auditorium  has 
recently  been  greatly  improved  at  a  cost  of  six- 
teen hundred  dollars,  or  more.  In  addition  to 
the  above,  the  Library  Chapel  at  Lithia  was 
dedicated  in  August,  1904. 

The  American  Unitarian  Association  now 
[  174  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

holds  in  trust  for  missionary  purposes  the  two 
hundred  acres  of  Lithia  Springs  land  and  the 
improvements  thereon,  worth  twenty  thousand 
dollars  at  a  low  estimate,  the  church  edifice  and 
lot  within  a  square  of  the  court-house  in  Shelby- 
ville,  valued  at  five  thousand  dollars,  the  Jordan 
Chapel  and  lot  within  two  miles  of  Lithia 
Springs,  valued  at  fifteen  hundred  dollars,  and 
the  Library  Chapel,  at  Lithia,  valued  at  twelve 
hundred  dollars. 

I  have  always  insisted  that  the  people  of  the 
community  should  build  their  house  of  worship 
themselves.  I  never  solicited  outside  aid  for 
a  church  edifice  except  in  one  instance,  and  I 
have  that  to  regret.  This  was  the  case  of  Unity 
church  at  Mattoon.  It  was  built  at  the  close  of 
the  Civil  War,  when  material  was  very  high,  so 
that  it  was  said  to  have  cost  nearly  ten  thousand 
dollars.  It  was  then  and  thus  built  against 
my  advice.  However,  a  pathetic  appeal  from 
the  late  Thomas  P.  C.  Lane,  the  prime  mover 
for  the  building,  prompted  me  to  help  free 
it  of  debt.  Mr.  Lane  was  plunged  suddenly 
into  deep  sorrow  by  the  death  of  his  little 
daughter,  Nina.  He  wished  the  church  to  be  a 
memorial  of  her.  Therefore,  to  help  lift  the 
debt  on  the  church,  I  received  fifteen  hundred 
[  175  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

dollars  from  Mrs.  Anna  Richmond,  of  Provi- 
dence, R.  I.,  Miss  Dorothea  Dix,  members  of 
Robert  Collyer's  Church  of  the  Messiah,  N.  Y., 
and  others;  and  by  the  advice  of  Dr.  Wm.  G. 
Eliot  I  paid  this  money  to  the  trustees  of  the 
Mattoon  church  with  the  stipulation  that  in  case 
the  building  ever  ceased  for  the  term  of  two 
years  to  be  used  for  Unitarian  services,  and  the 
property  should  revert  and  be  sold,  the  fifteen 
hundred  dollars  should  be  applied  to  general  mis- 
sionary work  in  the  state  of  Illinois.  The 
building  did  cease  to  be  thus  used  and  the  prop- 
erty was  sold  in  1906;  but  I  am  informed  that 
the  trustees  think  best  to  put  on  interest  the 
fifteen  hundred  dollars  for  a  time,  with  the  rest 
of  the  funds  from  the  sale,  in  the  hope  that  op- 
portunity may  yet  offer  for  building  another 
Unitarian  edifice  in  that  enterprising  city.  I 
must  think  there  would  be  more  practical 
religion  in  at  once  applying  the  money  ac- 
cording to  the  above  stipulation  to  the  sup- 
port of  some  good,  live  Christian  missionary  in 
this  state.  If  the  people  are  filled  with  the 
spirit  of  Christ,  the  necessary  churches  will  be 
built  as  naturally  as  the  bark  grows  on  living 
trees.  Spirit  controls  matter,  —  not  matter 
spirit.  A  costly  church  building,  with  few  or 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

no  worshipers,  is  like  a  mighty  ship  of  war  with 
few  or  none  to  man  it. 

As  nearly  as  I  can  estimate,  over  one  thou- 
sand persons  have  been  received  into  church 
membership  under  my  ministry  in  this  vicinity, 
two  hundred  children  christened,  nearly  one 
thousand  funerals  attended,  and  about  four 
hundred  marriage  ceremonies  performed. 
Many  of  those  to  whom  I  have  ministered  have 
passed  from  earth.  And  a  great  number  of 
those  who  have  united  in  church  covenant  are 
scattered  abroad  in  the  different  states  from 
Massachusetts  Bay  to  "  where  rolls  the  Ore- 
gon," and  from  the  Dakotas  on  the  north  to 
Texas  in  the  south. 

One  object  which  at  the  beginning  I  con- 
fidently hoped  to  achieve  in  this  mission  was  to 
establish  at  least  one  self-supporting  congre- 
gation. I  confess  that  the  failure  to  do  this 
has  been  the  saddest,  sorest  disappointment  of 
my  forty-five  years'  missionary  effort.  How- 
ever, with  a  consciousness  of  having  done  what 
I  could  for  the  right  as  God  gave  me  to  see  the 
right,  I  am  content  to  leave  results  with  Him. 

My  work  has  been  largely  of  a  social  settle- 
ment character,  with  a  religious  emphasis,  and 
mostly  in  rural  districts.  I  have  preached  to 
[  177  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 


tenants,  wage-workers,  and  people  on  the  wing; 
so  that,  from  year  to  year,  my  congregations 
have  come  and  gone.  Young  people,  ambitious 
to  rise  in  the  world,  have  passed  on  to  where 
they  hoped  for  more  advantages.  But  alas ! 
some  have  overlooked  the  fact  that  the  only  way 
to  really  rise  in  this  world  or  the  next,  is  to 
live  a  good  life.  I  am  thinking  of  some 
who  have  gone  to  large  cities  who  would  better 
be  cultivating  the  fertile  land  and  raising  fruits 
and  poultry  near  Lithia  Springs. 

It  has  been  my  lot  to  draw  mostly  poor 
people, —  wage-workers  and  tenants, —  with  few 
owners  of  their  own  homes,  into  church  mem- 
bership. Free  thinkers  or  agnostics,  who 
could  not  honestly  assent  to  the  creeds  of  the 
popular  churches,  have  occasionally  been  drawn 
into  our  fellowship.  No  wealthy  persons  and 
none  who  have  sought  first  for  fashionable 
society  and  soft  seats  have  identified  themselves 
with  my  congregations,  although  a  goodly  num- 
ber of  my  people  have  become  influential  and 
noted  as  teachers,  editors  and  reformers.  But 
while  there  is  a  membership  of  several  hundred 
scattered  over  this  and  other  states,  the  num- 
ber in  the  immediate  vicinity  is  small. 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

Dr.  Wm.  G.  Eliot,  of  the  Church  of  the  Mes- 
siah and  Chancellor  of  Washington  University, 
St.  Louis,  Mo.,  was  my  wise  and  fatherly  adviser 
in  mission  work  for  years  before  he  was  trans- 
lated. I  remember  once  going  to  him  disheart- 
ened, and  almost  persuaded  to  abandon  the  mis- 
sion. The  support  had  fallen  off  and  my  con- 
gregations grown  small,  as  they  have  often 
done,  and  then  grown  up  again.  I  asked  him 
what  I  should  do.  "  Are  you  sure,"  inquired 
the  Chancellor,  "  that  you  are  pleading  for  the 
highest  character  and  purest  standard  of  public 
morals  ?  "  I  replied :  "  I  have  been  trying  my 
best  to  do  that  and  it  seems  that  has  caused 
several  people  to  turn  away  from  me !  "  "  Very 
well,  then,"  said  the  Chancellor,  "  stick,  and 
don't  worry!  Be  of  good  courage!  The  Uni- 
tarian misson  stands  for  character  and  the  best 
quality  of  work  rather  than  for  quantity  or  a 
great  following.  Only  do  your  part  well,  and 
leave  results  to  God.  I  will  help  you  all  I  can." 

One  of  the  oldest  and  most  trusted  citizens  of 
central  Illinois,  distinguished  in  his  profes- 
sion and  a  member  of  one  of  the  oldest  churches, 
recently  volunteered  to  testify  substantially  as 
follows : 

C  179  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

"  If  Jasper  Douthit  had  just  preached  the 
gospel  and  not  made  such  a  crusade  against 
liquor  license  and  other  social  evils,  but  instead 
had  done  more  proselyting  and  persuaded  peo- 
ple to  join  the  Unitarian  Church,  he  might  have 
had  a  strong,  self-supporting  congregation  in 
Shelbyville.  However,  I  incline  to  believe  the 
course  he  has  pursued  had  done  more  good  to 
everybody  among  all  the  churches  and  parties. 
His  work  has  been  leavening  the  whole  com- 
munity, killing  religious  bigotry  and  partisan 
prejudice,  and  has  been  most  effective  for  moral 
reform." 


[  180  ] 


XIII 

One  Sunday  morning  about  the  year  1865,  at 
the  close  of  a  little  meeting  in  Dole's  Hall,  Mat- 
toon,  a  young  man  introduced  himself  to  me 
as  Lyman  Clark.  He  had  come  on  horseback 
from  twelve  miles  south  to  hear  me  preach.  He 
told  me  he  was  thinking  seriously  of  the  min- 
istry, and  inquired  about  the  Meadville  Theo- 
logical School.  He  had  served  valiantly,  as  I 
afterwards  learned,  in  the  Union  army.  He 
went  four  years  to  Meadville  and  graduated  in 
1869.  He  had  parishes  at  Jacksonville,  111., 
Lancaster,  N.  H.,  Petersham,  Mass.,  Ayer, 
Mass.,  and  at  Andover,  N.  H,,  and  served  these 
different  parishes  for  twenty-five  years. 
During  his  pastorate  at  Petersham  he  ren- 
dered valuable  service  as  member  of  the  State 
Legislature.  Two  of  his  sons  are  graduates  of 
Harvard  University,  and  one  of  them,  Rev. 
Albert  W.  Clark,  is  a  most  worthy  young  min- 
ister and  present  pastor  of  the  Unitarian  Church 
at  Schenectady,  N.  Y. 

James  Brown,  of  Mode,  Shelby  County,  was 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

ordained  March  11,  1877,  in  the  Unitarian 
Church  at  Shelbyville  at  the  hands  of  the  late 
Brooke  Herford  of  England,  John  H.  Heywood 
of  Louisville,  Ky.,  and  other  ministers.  Mr. 
Brown  served  the  little  flocks  at  Mode  for  nearly 
a  score  of  years,  and  preached  in  the  country 
school-houses  round  about,  meanwhile  sup- 
porting himself  and  family  by  hard  work  at 
wagon-making.  He  died  March  81,  1902,  at 
the  age  of  58  years. 

Rev.  Napoleon  Hoagland,  now  minister  at 
Tyngsboro,  Mass.,  came,  when  a  small  boy,  to 
hear  me  preach  at  the  school-house  near  Mode, 
before  the  Union  church  was  built.  He  was  the 
picture  then,  in  my  mind,  of  Whittier's  "  Bare- 
foot Boy,"  —  and  bareheaded  also,  —  but  a 
good  boy.  He  studied  with  me  and  my  wife  at 
our  home,  and  then  entered  the  Meadville 
School;  graduating  after  four  years,  in  1885. 
He  has  served  parishes  at  Greeley,  Colo. ; 
Wichita,  Kansas ;  Olympia,  Washington ;  Prov- 
idence, R.  I. ;  Marshfield,  Mendon  and  War- 
wick, Mass.  He  has  ever  been  a  constant  friend 
and  helper  of  the  mission  around  his  birthplace. 
His  mother  was  a  devout  and  noble  woman,  and 
my  schoolmate  at  Shelby  Academy,  over  fifty 
years  ago. 

[   182  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

Rev.  Ada  H.  Kepley,  of  Effingham,  Illinois, 
was  ordained  in  the  Unitarian  Church  at  Shelby  - 
ville,  on  July  24,  1892.  Rev.  W.  H.  Lloyd  of 
the  Presbyterian  church,  Shelby ville;  Rev.  T.  B. 
Forbush  and  Rev.  John  H.  Heywood  took  part 
in  the  services.  Mrs.  Kepley  had  been  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Unitarian  church  for  many  years. 
She  had  been  a  most  active  and  self-sacrificing 
worker  in  the  temperance  and  social  purity 
reforms  in  her  home  county  and  throughout 
the  state.  She  was  before,  as  since  her  ordina- 
tion, practically  a  minister  at  large  in  Effingham 
and  adjoining  counties.  She  edited  and  pub- 
lished, at  a  sacrifice,  the  Friend  of  Home  for 
many  years.  It  was  one  of  the  brightest  and 
best  temperance  monthlies  in  the  country.  She 
was  a  close  co-worker  with  the  saintly  Frances 
E.  Willard  and  received  high  praise  from  Miss 
Willard  for  specially  heroic  service.  Sister 
Kepley  has  most  unselfishly  served  others  all 
these  years  "  without  pay  and  without  price." 

Her  husband,  the  late  Henry  B.  Kepley,  Esq., 
President  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  Austin 
College,  was  in  full  sympathy  with  Mrs.  Kep- 
ley's  work.  He  too  was  a  member  of  the  Uni- 
tarian congregation  of  Shelbyville.  He  built 
at  his  own  expense  a  chapel  in  the  heart  of  the 
[  183  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

city  of  Effingham,  which  was  called  "  The 
Temple."  It  was  for  Mrs.  Kepley's  use  and 
dedicated  to  mission  Sunday-school  and  gospel 
temperance  purposes. 

Rev.  Ollie  Cable  Green  is  a  teacher  in  the 
public  schools  at  Winchester,  HI.,  and  also 
public  librarian.  She  united  with  the  Uni- 
tarian Church,  Shelbyville,  in  1885.  She  was 
ordained  by  the  United  Brethren  Church  before 
she  became  a  member  of  my  congregation.  She 
was  a  valuable  assistant  to  me  for  several  years 
in  this  mission.  She  has  taught  in  the  primary 
department  of  the  public  schools  of  Illinois  for 
a  score  of  years.  She  has  made  a  heroic  effort 
to  rear  and  educate  a  family  of  useful  children, 
one  of  whom  is  named  after  James  Freeman 
Clarke.  During  part  of  her  career  as  a  teacher 
she  has  supplied  the  pulpit  for  the  Universal- 
ists  and  some  other  denominations  in  the  places 
where  she  has  taught.  While  true  to  her  colors 
as  a  Unitarian,  she  is  in  no  sense  a  contro- 
versialist, but  is  deeply  religious  and  is  fre- 
quently welcomed  to  preach  in  orthodox  pulpits. 

My  son,  Robert  Collyer  Douthit,  began  mis- 
sion work  with  his  father  as  a  printer  boy,  and 
served  as  a  foreman  in  Our  Best  Words  office 
when  the  paper  had  the  largest  circulation. 
[  184  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

Ten  thousand  copies  of  one  issue  were  circulated 
over  this  and  adjacent  counties  during  the  fight 
against  the  saloon  politics  and  the  treating 
custom.  During  these  years,  we  also  published 
"  Old  Shelby  Seminary  Memorial "  and  other 
books.  But  the  printer  boy  felt  called  to  the 
ministry.  He  took  a  four  years'  course  in 
Meadville  Theological  School,  graduating  in 
1893.  After  graduating,  he  served  acceptably 
the  Unitarian  parishes  in  Baraboo,  Wis.,  and 
Petersham,  Mass.  Then,  for  about  two  years, 
he  had  charge  of  the  congregations  in  this 
mission,  meantime  also  assisting  at  Lithia 
Springs  Chautauqua,  besides  editing  and 
printing  Our  Best  Words.  Then  for  health's 
sake  he  returned  East  and  was  minister  of  the 
church  at  Dover,  Mass.,  for  nearly  three  years. 
He  is  now  pastor  of  the  first  parish  in  Castine, 
Maine. 

There  is  also  Colonel  Sobieski,  now  of  Los 
Angeles,  California,  a  descendant  of  the  famous 
King  John  Sobieski  of  Poland.  Colonel  So- 
bieski has  been  a  member  of  the  Shelbyville 
Church  for  twelve  years,  and  though  not  for- 
mally ordained,  yet  since  his  connection  with  the 
Unitarian  church  he  has  been  essentially  a  Chris- 
tian minister,  "  after  the  order  of  Melchisedek, 
[  185  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

King  of  Salem."  When  this  (at  that  time) 
young  Polish  prince  was  shot  through  the  body 
and  lay  bleeding  on  the  battle-field  of  Gettys- 
burg, he  was  pronounced  mortally  wounded  by 
the  surgeon,  whereupon  the  chaplain  advised  him 
to  make  his  peace  with  God.  Colonel  Sobieski 
replied  quickly  in  broken  English :  "  I  have 
never  had  any  fuss  with  God."  All  who  knew 
Colonel  Sobieski  intimately  would  say  he  spoke 
the  truth.  He  has  been  a  loving  disciple  of  the 
"  Prince  of  Peace  "  all  his  life.  He  has  traveled 
extensively  pleading  for  temperance  reform  and 
has  spoken  oftener  and  in  more  states  for  good- 
will to  man  than  any  other  living  American.  He 
is  still  at  it.  He  ministers  at  funerals  and  is 
often  called  to  occupy  on  Sundays  the  pulpits  of 
different  churches.  He  always  speaks  out 
bravely,  but  most  kindly  and  wisely,  for  "  pure 
religion  and  perfect  liberty,"  and  the  people 
hear  him  gladly.  Though  unlettered  in  a  sense, 
never  having  gone  to  school  a  day  in  his  life, 
yet,  in  the  best  sense  he  is  broadly  cultured  and 
charms  with  his  pleasing  manners,  his  eloquence 
and,  most  of  all,  his  Chistian  spirit.  He  is  a 
missionary  for  whom  we  all  thank  God,  while  we 
pray  for  more  of  the  same  kind.  He  was  for 
many  of  the  early  years,  the  platform  manager 
[  186  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

at  Lithia  Springs  Chautauqua,  and  to  his 
very  unselfish  service  and  wise  counsel  must  be 
credited  much  of  the  real  success  of  that  enter- 
prise. 

My  relations  with  orthodox  ministers  have 
been  from  the  first  remarkably  friendly,  con- 
sidering how  frankly  I  have  dissented  from  the 
creeds  of  the  churches.  The  first  pastor  of  a 
Shelbyville  church  to  propose  a  pulpit  exchange 
with  me  was  the  pastor  of  the  Second  M.  E. 
Church,  Rev.  James  M.  West,  late  of  Blooming- 
ton,  111.  The  late  Rev.  James  L.  Crane,  General 
Grant's  close  friend  and  chaplain  in  the  Civil 
War,  father  of  Drs.  Frank  Crane,  of 
Worcester,  Mass.,  and  the  late  Charles  Crane, 
of  Boston,  Mass.,  was  one  of  the  first  Metho- 
dists I  ever  heard  preach.  He  was  pastor 
of  the  First  Methodist  church  in  the  early  years 
of  my  ministry  in  Shelbyville.  Through  his 
influence  I  was  chosen  president  of  the  Shelby- 
ville Ministerial  Union,  the  first  club  of  the  kind 
organized  here,  I  believe,  of  which  the  pastors 
of  all  Protestant  congregations  in  the  city,  ex- 
cepting perhaps  one,  were  members.  A  few 
years  since,  and  a  while  before  he  was  promoted, 
the  Methodist  veteran  and  saint,  Isaac  Groves, 
at  the  age  of  eighty  years,  came  from  his  home 
[  187  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

in  Urbana,  Illinois,  to  visit  me  and  preach  in 
the  pulpit  of  the  "  singular  sheep  "  he  baptised 
over  two  score  years  before. 

About  the  first  local  pastor  to  subscribe  and 
insist  on  paying  for  Our  Best  Words,  was  a 
Catholic  priest,  and  some  of  my  best  friends  and 
helpers  have  been  members  of  that  church.  In 
the  early  years  of  my  anti-slavery  work,  the 
United  Brethren  were  most  loyal  allies,  as  the 
Free  Methodist  brethren  have  been  in  my  later 
crusade  against  the  liquor  traffic  and  kindred 
evils.  The  Christian  Church  in  Shelbyville  was 
often  granted  me  for  religious  services  more 
than  twenty-five  years  ago,  when  many  homes 
of  worship  in  the  county  were  closed  against 
me.  The  late  Elder  Bushrod  W.  Henry  was 
pastor  of  that  congregation  for  several  years. 
He  performed  the  marriage  ceremony  for  my 
parents,  and  always  seemed  glad  to  favor  their 
son. 

However,  occasionally,  I  have  been  furiously 
preached  and  prayed  against.  Once  in  a  large 
meeting,  years  ago,  a  minister  so  loudly  cursed 
me  in  his  prayer  that  he  was  not  wanted  after- 
wards by  a  majorty  of  his  parishioners.  Some- 
times ministers  have,  for  lack  of  information,  so 
misrepresented  the  Unitarian  position  that  I  have 
[  188  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

felt  obliged  to  correct  them  publicly.  Such  was 
the  case  when  the  late  good  Bishop  Edward  Ed- 
wards, of  the  United  Brethren  Church,  came  to 
this  mission  and  unwittingly  misrepresented 
Unitarians.  I  was  present,  took  notes  and 
publicly  replied  to  his  criticisms.  I  had  a  large 
hearing  and  was  invited  to  repeat  my  reply 
again  and  again.  Then,  by  the  help  of  Robert 
Collyer  and  his  people  of  the  Unity  Church, 
Chicago,  my  discourse  was  published  and  given 
a  circulation  of  many  thousand  copies.  I 
afterwards  had  the  pleasure,  through  the  kind- 
ness of  Professor  Huidekoper  of  Meadville,  Pa., 
of  placing  in  the  hands  of  the  bishop  the  works 
of  Channing  and  other  representative  Unitar- 
ians. He  thankfully  received  and  promised  to 
read  them,  and  I  trust  was  better  informed. 

At  another  time  the  newly  installed  pastor  of 
a  local  church,  an  honest  and  zealous  minister, 
felt  it  his  duty  to  have  no  fellowship  with  the 
Unitarian  missionary,  and  he  said  so  kindly  in 
public.  I  admired  his  loyalty  to  conviction  and 
his  brave  stand  against  public  evils.  I  cultivated 
his  acquaintance,  but  he  was  shy  of  me.  He 
would  not  attend  meetings  over  which  I  presided, 
until  a  temperance  rally  was  arranged  to  meet 
in  the  Unitarian  church  with  Governor  John 
[  189  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

P.  St.  John  of  Kansas  as  the  speaker.  Nearly 
all  the  ministers  of  the  city  were  present,  in- 
cluding this  brother.  He  had  said  he  could  not 
call  a  Unitarian  minister  a  "  brother  in  Christ." 
Governor  St.  John's  speech  against  the  liquor 
evil  proved  a  baptism  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  most 
of  us  in  that  meeting.  We  were  made  one  in 
purpose  for  the  overthrow  of  the  evil.  I  shall 
never  forget  how  the  minister  who  had  been  so 
shy  of  me,  now  reached  across  the  seats  to  clasp 
my  hand  and  say,  "  Brother  Douthit,  let's  hold 
the  next  meeting  in  a  larger  church."  It  was 
the  first  time  he  had  addressed  me  so  frater- 
nally. Not  long  after  that  we  were  in  the  post- 
office  together,  when  I  received  a  letter  with  a 
horrid  picture  of  a  skull  and  cross-bonej,  threat- 
ening my  life.  "  Will  you  let  me  have  that  to 
keep  over  Sunday  ?  "  asked  this  brother.  I  cheer- 
fully granted  the  request.  In  his  sermon 
the  next  Sunday  to  a  full  house,  including 
prominent  saloon  politicians,  this  minister 
held  up  before  his  congregation  the  picture 
of  skull  and  cross-bones  and  read  the  threat,  and 
then  gave  a  most  rousing  sermon  against  the  cor- 
rupt politics  that  would  resort  to  such  a  method 
of  argument.  That  good  minister  proved  to  be 
one  of  my  best  friends  and  pluckiest  co-workers 
[  190  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

for  temperance  and  social  purity.  He  tenderly 
assisted  me  at  my  father's  funeral.  He  is  now 
one  of  the  ablest  and  most  loved  ministers  of  his 
denomination  and  a  prominent  Chautauqua 
worker. 

From  the  beginning  of  our  meetings  at  Lithia 
Springs  the  pastors  of  the  various  churches  of 
Shelbyville  and  vicinity,  both  Catholic  and 
Protestant,  have,  to  the  best  of  my  recollection, 
been  constant,  brotherly  and  prayerful  co-work- 
ers with  scarcely  any  exception. 

I  was  joined  in  the  first  basket-meeting  at 
Lithia  Springs  in  1884  by  two  ministers  in  this 
vicinity  with  whom  I  had  recently  had  some  ex- 
tended controversy  on  points  of  doctrine 
through  the  local  press.  For  this  reason  it 
was  a  matter  of  surprise  and  comment  on  the 
part  of  many  people  that  this  Elder  and  this 
Doctor  should  be  the  first  persons  to  unite 
with  the  Unitarian  minister  in  holding  field 
meetings  at  Lithia  Springs.  But  why  should 
this  be  considered  a  strange  thing?  Cannot 
disciples  of  the  same  Master  honestly  differ 
and  give  reasons  for  their  differences  on  some 
points,  and  yet  be  good  friends  and  strong  allies 
in  preaching  a  common  Christianity  and  re- 
sisting a  common  evil? 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

There  is  a  beautiful  tradition  about  such 
springs  as  these  at  Lithia,  and  others  in  southern 
Indiana  and  Illinois.  The  tradition  is  this: 
"  When  the  Indians  were  at  war  with  each  other, 
no  matter  how  fiercely  the  battle  raged,  they 
agreed  that  these  springs  should  be  neutral 
ground,  and  that  whenever  any  of  the  warring 
tribes  met  here  they  should  at  least  smoke  the 
pipe  of  peace  while  they  remained  around  the 
springs." 


[  192  ] 


XIV 

The  closing  part  of  this  story  I  devote  to 
Lithia  Springs  and  the  institution  I  have  tried 
to  found  there. 

The  Lithia  Springs  are  about  one  mile  and 
a  half  from  where  Log  Church  was,  in  an  out- 
of-the-way  place,  no  public  road  going  nearer 
than  a  mile  at  the  time  of  my  early  mission  work 
at  Log  Church,  and  for  many  years  after. 
Now  roads  are  laid  out  on  all  sides,  and  the 
Big  Four  railroad  station  at  Middlesworth,  is 
only  a  mile  distant.  Twenty  years  ago  the 
estate,  a  rolling  country  of  hills  and  glens  and 
creek  bottom  lands,  was  covered  with  forest.  It 
lay  for  three-fourths  of  a  mile  on  each  side 
of  "  Lick  Branch,"  now  called  "  Lithia  Creek." 
This  is  a  water  course  of  rapid  fall,  so  that 
in  sudden  freshets  it  becomes  a  rushing  tor- 
rent, but  quickly  subsides  within  a  few  hours 
so  that  it  can  be  safely  crossed  on  foot.  This 
estate  fell  to  me  by  inheritance  from  my  father 
in  1889.  There  was  no  fence  enclosing  it,  and 
years  ago  wild  deer,  and  later  all  sorts  of 
[  193  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

domestic  animals  came  to  drink  at  the  springs 
until  they  became  a  pond  of  mud.  By  and  by 
one  of  the  springs  was  protected  by  an  old 
barrel  with  the  bottom  knocked  out,  and  from 
this  the  people  for  miles  around  procured  water 
to  carry  to  their  homes  to  drink.  The  springs 
came  to  be  regarded  as  a  necessity  to  the 
neighborhood  for  many  miles  about,  in  seasons 
of  drouth,  both  for  water  for  stock  and  for 
domestic  use,  and  they  were  never  known  to  fail 
in  the  dryest  time.  During  a  drouth  many 
wagons  would  often  be  lined  up  waiting  their 
turn.  Hidden  away  in  the  forest  and  with  few 
homes  near,  it  was  a  long  time  before  the 
place  was  much  known  outside  of  the  neighbor- 
hood. But  gradually  the  beauties  of  the  spot 
and  the  healthfulness  of  the  water  began  to 
acquire  more  than  a  local  fame,  and  by  1885, 
or  thereabouts,  it  had  become  a  popular  camping 
and  picnic  resort.  Then  Satan  got  busy,  and 
the  sober  and  orderly  were  often  kept  away 
by  those  who  congregated  there,  especially  on 
Sundays,  to  drink  and  carouse,  with  no  police- 
man to  molest  or  make  afraid. 

It  had  been  my  custom  in  the  summer  time 
all  the  years   I  lived  in    Shelbyville  to  speak 
frequently   at   basket   meetings,   as   the   all-day 
[   194   ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

picnics  with  social  and  religious  services  were 
called.  Some  of  these  were  annual  occasions 
in  which  people  of  all  the  different  religious 
bodies  in  the  vicinity  united.  I  came  to  have 
more  calls  to  address  these  picnics  and  basket 
meetings  than  I  could  accept.  I  saw  that 
Lithia  Springs  would  be  an  ideal  place  for  such 
gatherings. 

With  the  co-operation  of  Elder  L.  M.  Linn, 
a  rough  and  plucky  hater  of  the  saloon, 
and  others  of  the  Christian  Church,  a  basket 
meeting  was  held  there  on  Sunday,  August  31, 
1884.  Christians  of  all  denominations  joined 
heartily  in  the  services.  Two  thousand  people 
were  reported  to  be  present.  In  the  afternoon 
a  temperance  service  which  I  had  prepared  and 
printed  was  used,  and  hosts  of  people  bore 
testimony  in  behalf  of  temperance  by  spirited 
singing  while  the  congregation  filed  by  the  min- 
isters in  charge  and  clasped  hands  in  token  of 
their  desire  and  purpose  to  pull  together  in 
resisting  the  Devil  and  building  up  the  Kingdom 
of  God.  Then  other  meetings  were  held.  On 
Sunday,  August  9,  1885,  Rev.  J.  T.  Sunder- 
land,  then  Secretary  of  the  Western  Unitarian 
Conference,  preached  there  in  the  morning  and 
assisted  in  interesting  services  for  the  children 
[  195  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

in  the  afternoon.  At  these  meetings  there  were 
only  old  logs  and  the  grass  about  the  springs 
for  seats  and  the  blue  sky  for  canopy. 

In  November,  1889,  soon  after  the  death  of 
my  father,  I  was  given  possession  of  part  of 
that  tract  of  land,  the  first  land  I  ever  owned. 
I  say  a  "  part "  of  that  tract,  because  I 
bought  100  acres  more  which  has  greatly  ad- 
vanced in  value.  I  was  not  expecting  to  inherit 
any  real  estate,  and  I  had  made  up  my  mind  to 
be  content  without  it.  In  fact,  I  rather  en- 
joyed singing,  or  trying  to  sing,  as  I  rode  on 
horseback,  or  walked  to  my  appointments,  those 
verses  of  the  pioneer  Methodist  preacher: 

"  No  foot  of  land  do  I  possess, 
Nor  cottage  in  the  wilderness." 

When  the  partitioners  of  the  estate  set  apart 
this  Lithia  Springs  ground  to  my  share,  I  was 
grateful  in  a  sense,  yet,  in  another  sense,  I 
was  a  little  unhappy  that  I  could  not  now 
honestly  sing  the  old  song. 

My  father  had  owned  the  springs  from  the 
time  the  Indians  left.  They  had  very  precious 
associations  for  me.  The  land  was  that  over 
which  my  mother  had  carried  me  as  she  gathered 
the  sap  from  the  maple  trees  around  them 
[  196  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

to  make  the  yearly  supply  of  sweets  for  the 
family  table;  and  now  I  craved  to  live  long 
enough  to  see  it  consecrated  forever  as  holy 
ground,  made  too  pure  to  ever  tolerate  in  any 
form  that  which  had  caused  my  mother  so  much 
distress,  destroyed  so  many  homes,  and  blasted 
the  lives  of  so  many  of  my  neighbors  and 
relatives. 

There  was  no  income  to  be  derived  from 
the  grounds,  which  were  wild,  unfenced,  unculti- 
vated. The  neighbors  only  thought  of  them 
as  a  fine  farm  in  the  rough,  and  especially  valu- 
able for  stock  because  of  the  rare  water  supply, 
but  I  only  thought  of  how  I  might  conse- 
crate the  ground  to  the  mission  of  my  life.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  here  was  an  opportunity  to 
establish  some  form  of  work  or  beneficent  in- 
stitution that  would  become  a  permanent 
rallying  center  for  practical  religion.  What 
form  it  might  take  I  did  not  know.  I  must 
make  the  venture  walking  by  faith  and  not  by 
sight.  I  must  make  the  start  alone  and  without 
even  the  approval  of  prudent  business  men. 

The  first  thing  to  be  done  was  to  prepare 
the  place  to   hold  meetings.     I  was   moneyless 
and  with  insufficient  salary  for  even  living  ex- 
penses.    I  had  not  ten  dollars  capital  to  begin 
[  197  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

with.  Therefore  I  borrowed  on  the  land  as 
security  enough  money  to  fence  it,  clear  a  part 
of  the  dense  underbrush  around  the  springs, 
build  a  shelter  over  the  springs  and  wall  with 
tile.  By  the  middle  of  the  summer  of  1890, 
with  the  help  of  generous  neighbors,  we  had 
completed  a  large  covered  shed  or  wigwam  with 
open  sides,  later  called  the  "  tabernacle "  or 
auditorium,  to  hold  meetings  in. 

I  determined  that  our  nation's  birthday 
should  be  kept  in  one  place  in  Shelby  County  at 
a  safe  distance  from  those  plague  spots,  the 
saloons.  Therefore,  to  begin  with,  I  invited 
everybody  to  a  free  Fourth  of  July  picnic  at 
Lithia  Springs,  and  there  was  a  mighty  re- 
sponse. The  papers  reported  ten  thousand 
people  present.  The  woods  were  full  of  people, 
and  many  pretty  trees  were  spoiled  by  the 
horses. 

There  was  still  a  mountain  of  prejudice  and 
long  prevailing  custom  to  overcome.  Old  resi- 
dents of  the  vicinity  contended  that  the  springs 
must  not  be  fenced  from  the  public.  It  was 
claimed  that  they  must  remain  forever  as  free  as 
the  air  to  everybody.  The  only  road  to  them 
ran  diagonally  across  the  land,  as  it  had  run, 
for  aught  I  know,  since  the  Indians  made  the 
[  198  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

trail;  and,  strange  to  say,  a  majority  of  the 
township  commissioners  encouraged  by  public 
sentiment  insisted  that  it  must  continue  to  go 
that  way  instead  of  on  the  section  line.  They 
claimed  that  for  the  convenience  of  the  public 
the  road  must  run  so  as  to  include  the  springs ; 
that  the  owner  of  the  land  had  no  right  to  en- 
close and  control  that  water.  It  should  be  free 
to  all  people  at  all  times  as  it  always  had  been, — 
and  certainly  no  temperance  crank  should  be  al- 
lowed to  control  it.  That  would  interfere  with 
"  personal  liberty."  The  case  actually  went  to 
the  courts.  Finally  the  Shelby  County  Board 
of  Supervisors, —  the  county  legislature, —  ap- 
pointed three  of  its  members  as  a  jury,  or  court, 
before  which  the  case  should  be  tried.  The  court 
was  convened,  seated  on  old  logs  about  the 
springs.  Many  people  were  present.  Hon.  Geo. 
D.  Chafee,  now  senator,  my  most  faithful  friend 
from  the  beginning,  was  attorney  for  the  owner 
of  the  land,  and  Col.  L.  B.  Stephenson,  then  of 
St.  Louis,  for  the  road  commissioners.  After 
much  testimony  and  eloquent  pleading,  the  ver- 
dict was  that  the  springs  might  be  enclosed  and 
the  road  changed  to  the  section  line. 

The  first  ten  days'  encampment  was  held  in 
August,   1891,   and  was    conducted  mostly  by 
[  199  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

workers  for  temperance  and  kindred  reforms 
as  advocated  by  the  Woman's  Christian  Tem- 
perance Union.  Miss  Frances  E.  Willard,  was 
to  me  and  my  wife  the  patron  saint  of  this 
mission  for  nearly  thirty  years.  She  seemed 
to  have  a  special  interest  in  Our  Best  Words  and 
the  mission  work  since  the  first  and  only  time 
she  visited  Shelbyville,  near  the  beginning  of 
her  wonderful  career.  It  so  happened  at  that 
visit  that  I  was  the  only  minister  to  be  on  the 
platform  with  her  and  assist  in  the  meeting  by 
prayer.  I  remember  how  she  hastened  to  clasp 
my  hand  at  the  close  of  her  address  and  say: 
"  Well,  I  am  so  thankful  to  have  had  the 
presence  and  prayer  of  at  least  one  minister  at 
this  meeting."  There  was  a  trembling  and 
pathos  in  her  voice  as  she  spoke  that  I  shall 
never  forget. 

From  that  time  until  she  was  promoted, 
saying :  "  How  beautiful  it  is  to  be  with  God," 
she  wrote  me  often,  and  I  never  had  such  a 
prompt  correspondent  with  any  busy  person, 
unless  it  was  Dr.  Henry  W.  Bellows  of  All 
Souls  Church,  New  York.  I  am  moved  to  give 
place  here  to  one  of  her  letters.  From  her 
home  in  Evanston  in  1894,  she  wrote: 
[  200  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

"  Dear  Brother, — 

"  I  have  your  unique  paper,  and  I  can  but 
feel  that  if  every  paper  in  this  country  were  at 
the  same  high  level  we  would  be  on  the  high  road 
to  the  millenium.  You  know  that  I  am  in  the 
heartiest  sympathy  with  you  in  all  your  great 
and  beautiful  work.  All  women  owe  you  their 
thanks.  We  are  in  a  great  battle  wherever  we 
may  be,  and  I  think  you  feel  as  I  do,  that  those 
who  care  for  the  same  things  and  do  the  same 
work  are  really  always  in  the  same  world  of 
thought  and  growth. 

"  And  believe  me  always, 

"  Yours  with  sisterly  regard, 

"  FRANCES  E .  WILLARD." 

About  half  a  dozen  families  tented  on  the 
grounds  at  the  first  Assembly  while  we  held 
meetings  day  and  evening  for  the  ten  days ;  and 
the  number  of  tenters  steadily  increased  from 
year  to  year  until  there  were  a  thousand  or 
more. 

It  is  the  testimony  of  many  of  wide  obser- 
vation that  the  place  is  ideal  for  camping  and 
Chautauqua  purposes.  The  breezes  are  always 
cooler  and  more  constant  here  in  summer  than  on 
the  prairie,  the  scenery  is  beautiful,  the  soil  dry, 
sandy  and  well  drained,  with  no  mud  a  few 
[  201  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

hours  after  the  heaviest  rain.  It  is  healthful, 
almost  free  from  mosquitoes,  and  far  away 
from  the  vicious  influences  of  the  city,  the 
bustle  of  trade  and  the  fashionable  "  resorts," 
just  the  place  where  whole  families  may  gather, 
in  love  of  nature  and  truth,  and  dwell  in  sweet 
simplicity  to  learn  from  the  wisest  and  best  men 
and  women  of  earth  lessons  of  health,  virtue  and 
happiness.  The  water  is  equal  to  any  in  the 
country  for  medicinal  and  health-giving  qual- 
ities, and  of  just  the  right  temperature  to  drink. 

Nearly  if  not  quite  every  plant,  tree  and 
flower  that  grows  in  the  Mississippi  valley  may 
be  found  about  these  springs;  and  Prof. 
Leander  S.  Keyser,  the  popular  author  on  orni- 
thology, who  spent  a  week  on  the  grounds, 
says  there  are  probably  two  hundred  varieties  of 
birds  here  during  the  year.  During  the  last 
eighteen  years  they  have  been  specially  pro- 
tected and  undisturbed  on  the  grounds,  so  that 
they  have  increased  in  number  and  grown  re- 
markably tame. 

Many  have  said  in  substance  what  Booker 
T.  Washington  wrote :  "  I  have  visited  few 
spots  anywhere  in  the  world  that  possess  such 
charms,  such  an  influence  for  good  in  every 
direction  as  is  true  of  Lithia  Springs."  And 
[  202  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

Commander  Ballington  Booth  testified :  "  I 
have  seen  some  beautiful  assembly  grounds. 
But  I  must  say  that  I  have  yet  to  see  a  place 
that  is  more  picturesque  and  seems  more  fitted 
by  nature  for  the  purpose  to  which  this  spot 
has  been  consecrated." 

As  before  stated,  beginning  with  1891, 
annual  ten-day  assemblies  were  held.  These  first 
assemblies  were  of  the  old-fashioned  camp-meet- 
ing order.  The  time  of  the  encampment  was 
later  increased  to  fifteen  days,  and,  at  the  sug- 
gestion of  Chaplain  C.  C.  McCabe,  afterwards 
Bishop,  who  came  to  help  several  times,  I  planned 
to  have  the  institution  become  a  part  of  the  great 
Chautauqua  system,  a  real  national  Chautauqua, 
and  one  that  should  be  a  credit  to  the  Unitarian 
mission  and  name.  But  this  meant  more  ex- 
pense for  schools,  lectures,  and  a  high  class  of 
entertainments.  It  meant  more  buildings.  It 
meant  more  systematic  school  work,  especially 
for  the  young,  combined  with  recreation. 

In  a  circular  letter  dated  November  10,  1898, 
to  the  friends  of  the  mission  in  the  Unitarian 
body,  my  wife  and  I  offered  to  take  less  than 
half  price  for  the  estate  if  ten  thousand  dollars 
could  be  raised  for  it  at  once,  saying  that  we 
hoped  the  enterprise,  conducted  as  it  had  been, 
[  203  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

might  become  self-supporting.  Thereupon  Dr. 
Edward  Everett  Hale  made  an  enthusiastic  ap- 
peal through  the  Christian  Register,  recom- 
mending that  the  offer  be  accepted;  but  a  year 
passed,  and  there  was  surprisingly  little  response 
to  the  appeal. 

At  the  annual  Lithia  Assembly  in  August, 
1899,  the  party  Prohibitionists  in  council  on  the 
ground  made  a  move  to  purchase  one  hundred 
acres  at  my  price,  one  hundred  dollars  per  acre. 
This  movement  of  the  Prohibitionists  was  led  by 
the  Hon.  Hale  Johnson,  now  of  sainted  memory, 
the  noble  and  beloved  candidate  for  Vice  Presi- 
dent, who  was  shot  dead  by  an  insane  man  when 
he  was  trying  to  befriend  him. 

I  was  on  the  point  of  completing  the  bar- 
gain with  Mr.  Johnson  when  my  wife  and  I  were 
advised  by  Ballington  Booth  and  other  friends 
that,  as  we  wished  so  much  to  keep  the  Chau- 
tauqua  under  the  auspices  of  the  denomination 
with  which  we  had  labored  so  long,  there  should 
be  another  effort  to  that  end.  Hon.  George 
E.  Adams,  of  Chicago,  Vice  President  of  the 
American  Unitarian  Association,  was  in  camp  at 
the  time.  My  wife  and  I  conferred  with  him, 
and  he  assured  us  that  he  would  favor  bringing 
the  matter  of  raising  a  Lithia  Springs  fund  be- 
[  204  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

fore  the  next  National  Conference  of  Unitarian 
and  other  Christian  Churches,  which  was  to  meet 
in  Washington,  D.  C.,  October,  1899. 

We  decided  to  act  upon  Mr.  Adams's  sug- 
gestion. Accordingly  at  the  meeting  in  Wash- 
ington by  motion  of  Mr.  Hale,  seconded  by  Mr. 
Adams  and  others,  the  movement  to  raise  a 
fund  for  Lithia  Springs  was  endorsed  by  the 
Conference  at  Washington,  the  late  Hon. 
George  F.  Hoar,  United  States  Senator  from 
Massachusetts,  presiding.  I  then  and  there  pro- 
posed that  if  eight  thousand  dollars,  estimated 
to  be  half  the  value  of  two  hundred  acres,  could 
be  raised  immediately  we  would  give  a  deed  for 
two  hundred  acres  to  the  American  Unitarian 
Association.  Dr.  Hale  and  others  favored  the 
raising  of  the  sum  right  in  that  Conference, 
but  the  business  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  a 
committee.  It  was  my  understanding  that  the 
committee  would  convene  immediately  and  sub- 
mit a  plan  for  raising  the  eight  thousand  dollars 
by  the  close  of  the  Conference.  Therefore, 
though  urgent  duties  called  me  home,  I  remained 
in  the  city  two  days  and  nights  longer  expecting 
the  sum  to  be  subscribed.  Imagine  my  chagrin 
when  nothing  was  done. 

Finally,  through  the  co-operation  of  the 
[  205  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

Women's  National  Alliance  and  the  energetic 
push  of  Rev.  Charles  E.  St.  John,  Secretary  of 
the  American  Unitarian  Association,  who  visited 
the  Chautauqua  in  1900,  a  fund  of  eight  thou- 
sand dollars  was  completed,  and  in  April,  two 
years  after  the  Conference  at  Washington,  a 
deed  was  given  by  my  wife  and  myself  to  the 
American  Unitarian  Association  for  two  hun- 
dred acres  of  Lithia  Springs  ground,  with  spe- 
cial contract  and  lease  for  the  purpose  of  con- 
tinuing the  Chautauqua  work. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  instead  of  ten  thousand 
dollars  for  two  hundred  and  sixty  acres,  eight 
thousand  dollars  was  raised  for  two  hundred 
acres.  During  the  three  years  of  uncertainty, 
with  seven  per  cent,  interest  to  pay  and  the  in- 
creasing necessity  of  keeping  up  a  high  stand- 
ard for  the  Assembly,  thus  holding  the  vantage 
already  gained,  my  debts  had  increased  so  that 
there  was  a  balance  of  forty-two  hundred  dollars 
unpaid.  And  now,  largely  in  consequence  of 
these  uncertainties  and  delays  in  raising  the 
fund,  my  worst  fears  were  realized  by  the  an- 
nouncement that  a  rival  Assembly  was  incorpo- 
rated to  be  held  at  the  old  Fair  Grounds,  by  some 
money  loaners  and  church  members  not  in  sym- 
pathy with  my  religious  views  or  my  fight 
[  206  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

against  the  drink  evil.  The  saloon  keepers  were 
elated.  The  promoters  of  the  new  enterprise 
had  practically  unlimited  capital,  and  they  pre- 
pared to  spend  it  freely.  An  auditorium  cost- 
ing some  eight  thousand  dollars  was  built,  the 
grounds  were  improved  and  beautified  with  an 
artificial  lake,  and  they  have  yearly  engaged 
some  of  the  costliest  talent  in  the  nation  and 
some  good  preachers  and  lecturers,  many  of 
whom  are  not  aware  of  what  they  do.  The 
promoters  were  men  who  knew  nothing  of  the 
real  Chautauqua  movement.  They  thought  I 
had  been  making  money  and  that  rivalry  was 
just  as  legitimate  in  this  as  in  other  enterprises. 
Thus,  while  those  true  to  Chautauqua  princi- 
ples, at  home  and  abroad,  have  given  us  sym- 
pathy and  help  in  our  struggle,  the  press  in 
this  section  being  outspoken  in  regard  to  the 
"  mean  trick  "  in  opposition  to  Lithia,  yet  great 
numbers  went  to  see  the  crowd  and  the  show  at 
the  Fair  Grounds.  Thus  the  future  of  Lithia 
Chautauqua  was  clouded.  I  doubt  not  that  in 
various  ways  the  opposition  has  cost  us  thou- 
sands of  dollars. 

In  the  face  of  the  depressing  financial  pros- 
pect in  1901,  when  kind  contributors  thought 
the  outlook  bright  and  many  friends  thought 
[  207  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

the  whole  matter  settled  satisfactorily,  I  was 
menaced  by  this  wealthy  and  unscrupulous  riv- 
alry. Thus  it  will  be  seen  why,  when  the  time 
came  for  dedication  of  the  grounds  in  August, 
1901,  my  heart  failed  me.  I  advised  with 
Rev.  Henry  H.  Barber,  who  was  with  us,  and 
he  said :  "  Go  on,  I'll  help  you  all  I  can." 
And  so  he  did.  I  again  took  counsel  of  my 
hopes  and  not  of  my  fears ;  and  the  dedication 
took  place,  seemingly  with  flying  colors,  Sun- 
day, August  25,  1901.  But  while  the  people 
rejoiced,  I  wept  in  my  tent.  The  principal  ad- 
dress was  made  by  Mrs.  Laura  Ormiston  Chant 
of  England,  and  pastors  of  the  local  churches 
were  invited  and  took  part  in  the  exercises,  be- 
sides many  prominent  helpers  on  the  grounds. 

Chaplain,  afterwards  Bishop,  McCabe  spoke 
for  us  at  one  of  the  earlier  Fourth  of  July 
celebrations.  He  was  not  a  party  prohibition- 
ist, but  as  soon  as  he  saw  what  I  was  trying  to 
do  he  said,  "  Brother  Douthit,  I  want  to  help 
you,"  and  he  returned  to  me  a  large  part  of 
the  first  money  I  paid  him  for  his  very  ac- 
ceptable services.  "  Why  not  start  a  Chau- 
tauqua  here?  "  he  said  to  me,  "  and  let  it  be 
an  inter-denominational  and  inter-partisan  as- 
sembly? "  "  It  is  just  what  I  have  prayed  for 
[  208  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

these  many  years,"  I  responded  enthusiastically. 
"  Give  me  your  hand  on  that,  and  by  the  help 
of  God  it  shall  be."  And  so  I  added  "  Inter- 
denominational and  Inter-partisan,"  to  my 
watchwords  as  the  gift  of  Chaplain  McCabe, 
and  he  helped  to  bring  his  suggestions  to  pass, 
serving  at  the  assemblies  several  times.  But  to 
be  true  to  these  principles  at  the  beginning  re- 
quired a  struggle  and  loss  of  patronage.  For 
instance,  the  first  time  our  Catholic  brethren 
were  given  the  program  for  a  day,  many  non- 
Catholics  stayed  away  from  the  grounds  and 
some  people  sulked  in  their  tents.  "  It  will  ruin 
the  Assembly  to  let  in  Catholics  or  colored 
people,"  was  the  cry.  "  Well  then,  it  must  be 
ruined,"  was  the  manager's  reply.  Nevertheless 
the  number  of  campers  increased.  At  some  as- 
semblies of  late  years  there  has  been  an  average 
attendance  of  fifteen  hundred  people  daily ;  and 
it  is  the  uniform  testimony  that  there  were 
never  before  in  that  part  of  Illinois  so  large  a 
proportion  of  intelligent,  kindly  disposed,  and 
well-bred  men  and  women  of  all  sects,  Catho- 
lic and  Protestant,  all  parties,  classes,  and  of 
different  races,  brought  together  for  such  a 
length  of  time  and  with  such  harmony  of  spirit 
and  purpose. 

[  209  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

They  came  from  eight  or  ten  of  the  sur- 
rounding states  on  railroads;  and  they  came  in 
wagons,  some  from  fifty  and  a  hundred  miles. 
At  our  annual  assemblies  people  of  all  sects  and 
races  and  from  all  sections  have  been  welcomed 
to  its  privileges.  On  these  grounds  Jew  and 
Gentile,  Unitarian,  Universalist  and  Catholic 
are  treated  with  courtesy  and  good  fellowship 
by  people  of  orthodox  churches.  They  attend 
the  same  classes.  Many  of  them  eat  at  the  same 
table.  They  sing  and  pray  together ;  they  take 
counsel  together  and  dwell  in  unity  and  peace 
with  none  to  molest  or  make  afraid.  Thus  the 
fellowship  I  had  craved  for  a  lifetime  had  come 
to  pass  on  the  holiest  ground,  to  me,  on  earth. 

When  the  good  name  Chautauqua  was  being 
perverted  for  commercial  purposes,  Chancellor 
John  H.  Vincent  and  other  leading  workers  for 
the  true  Chautauqua  called  a  meeting  in  St. 
Louis  in  the  fall  of  1899  and  organized  the  In- 
ternational Chautauqua  Alliance,  in  order  to 
prevent,  so  far  as  possible,  fake  enterprises 
under  the  name.  The  officers  of  this  Alliance 
then  chosen  were  men  of  different  religious 
bodies,  and  for  many  years  I  was  honored  with 
the  office  of  recording  secretary,  and  later,  for 
two  years,  with  that  of  corresponding  secretary. 
[  210  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

I  want  to  record  the  fact,  that  I  never  in  my 
life  associated  with  a  nobler,  more  unselfish  and 
brotherly  body  of  men,  on  the  whole,  than 
were  the  members  of  this  International  Alliance. 
I  was  never  treated  more  cordially  by  any  body 
of  people,  religious  or  otherwise,  though  for 
most  of  the  years  of  its  existence  I  have  been  the 
only  Unitarian  Chautauqua  manager  in  the  Al- 
liance. Furthermore,  I  want  to  say  that  but 
for  the  quick  sympathy  and  prompt  and  tactful 
co-operation  of  the  members  of  this  Alliance, 
represented  by  Bishop  Vincent  and  his  son  Dr. 
George  E.  Vincent  of  the  University  of  Chicago, 
Lithia  Springs  Chautauqua,  with  its  very  lim- 
ited resources,  being  without  any  endowment  or 
capital,  could  not  have  survived  to  this  day  and 
won,  against  the  wealthy  local  opposition,  the 
high  credit  and  prestige  it  now  has  among  good 
people  and  the  real  Chautauqua  workers  of  the 
world. 

The  greatest  strain  of  all  my  life  was  dur- 
ing the  years  1901  to  1905,  years  which  were  the 
last  my  dear  wife  was  to  be  with  me  on  earth. 
She  was  an  invalid  now  and  needed  my  constant 
care;  I  must  nurse  and  support  her  with  one 
hand  and  with  the  other  keep  driving  at  work 
as  hard  as  I  could  to  save  the  cause  from  defeat. 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

This  cause  was  the  inspiring  thought  of  the 
close  of  the  many  years  of  our  life  together; 
and  she  faithfully,  sweetly,  cheered  me  on  to 
the  last.  It  was  in  the  early  days  of  the  As- 
sembly of  1905,  August  1,  at  our  cottage  at 
Lithia  Springs,  that  she  left  all  she  loved  here 
in  the  fond  trust,  as  I  fully  believe,  that  our 
hopes  would  triumph,  and  that  all  our  labor, 
trials  and  sacrifices  had  not  been  for  naught. 
Forty-eight  years  together,  and  nearly  all  the 
time  actively  engaged  in  our  mission  work.  I 
emphasize  and  dwell  lovingly  on  "  our" 

How  I  got  through  the  trials,  uncertainties 
and  perplexities  of  continuing  the  work  I  hardly 
know.  It  was  much  more  of  an  uncertain 
struggle  than  the  first  period,  because  I  had 
taken  a  great  responsibility,  much  was  expected 
of  me,  and  I  shrank  from  presenting  the  facts 
of  the  case  to  those  who  believed  that  in  con- 
tributing to  the  eight  thousand  dollar  fund  they 
had  done  all  that  was  asked  and  all  that  was 
needed.  But  somehow  the  high  credit  of  the 
Chautauqua  was  sustained  and  necessary  im- 
provements of  great  utility  were  added  to  the 
grounds. 

In  1905  I  felt  that  I  ought  not  to  carry 
the  load  of  uncertainty,  perplexity  and  debt  any 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

longer;  forty-two  hundred  dollars  in  mortgages 
had  remained  since  1901  and  had  been  increased 
by  seven  per  cent,  interest,  and  other  ex- 
penses. But  following  a  signed  appeal  by  a 
score  of  friends  of  this  mission  in  the  Unitarian 
body,  part  of  this  sum  was  raised,  to  my  great 
relief. 

The  Lithia  Springs  Chautauqua  Association, 
a  local,  non-profit  sharing  corporation  was 
organized  to  take  the  financial  responsibility  of 
the  enterprise.  The  business  management  of 
this  body  was  unfortunate,  for  which  I  do  not 
feel  at  all  to  blame,  as  my  advice  was  not  re- 
garded, though  I  had  charge  of  the  program  as 
usual.  But  there  was  a  notion  that  I  was  noth- 
ing but  a  preacher,  and  so  the  practical  financial 
management  was  entrusted  to  others  who  were 
wholly  inexperienced  in  Chautauqua  business 
and  who  thought  they  knew  how  to  make  it 
boom.  The  result  was  that  on  November  8, 
1907,  this  company  relinquished  the  manage- 
ment, being  in  debt  about  twenty-five  hundred 
dollars.  Nevertheless,  this  well-meant  effort  re- 
sulted in  some  four  thousand  dollars  voluntary 
donations  by  the  people  of  this  locality  for  im- 
provements, besides  keeping  up  the  work  for 
two  years,  and  the  local  Association  is  under 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

obligations  to  pay  its  debts  as  soon  as  it  can. 
This,  in  some  measure,  is  a  small  token  of  the 
devotion  of  this  people  to  Lithia  Springs,  and 
under  discouraging  circumstances  at  that;  be- 
cause this  local  organization  somehow  failed  at 
the  start  to  get  the  confidence  of  the  people. 


[  214.  ] 


XV 


What  is  Chautauqua?  This  cannot  be  an- 
swered in  a  sentence,  nor  on  several  pages. 
Chautauqua  is  in  some  respects  what  the  people 
make  it.  It  is,  briefly  stated,  an  educational 
institution  at  a  summer  resort  home  under  some 
positive  religious  auspices,  where  people  of  all 
sects  and  no  sect, —  those  with  church  homes 
and  of  no  church  home, —  dwell  together  and 
unite  to  help  bring  the  Kingdom  of  God  into 
each  other's  hearts  and  homes,  and  learn  to  make 
the  most  of  themselves  and  their  opportunities, 
forgetting  differences  in  the  endeavor  to  uplift 
and  enoble  all  work.  It  is  a  bit  of  heaven  on 
earth,  a  foretaste  of  the  millennium,  where  all 
dwell  together  in  unity  and  singleness  of  pur- 
pose, a  vacation,  social,  restful,  recreative,  in- 
structive, all  with  the  best  moral  and  religious 
influences.  Time  is  counted  by  the  Chautauqua 
meeting  and  outing,  and  whole  families,  and 
whole  neighborhoods  even,  look  forward  to  it 
each  year  as  little  children  do  to  Christmas,  aa 
a  wholesome,  social,  happy,  joyous,  earnest  and 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

instructive  coming  together.  Think,  then,  what 
Chautauqua  means  to  a  hard-working  commu- 
nity of  farmers,  for  Lithia  Springs  is  essen- 
tially a  farmer's  Chautauqua,  and  their  families 
and  others  who  badly  need  this  vacation  and 
change  of  work.  Many  who  help  in  the  schools 
and  on  the  program  make  this  their  vacation 
time,  giving  their  services.  For  instance,  the 
orchestra  that  has  served  us  so  acceptably,  has 
almost  entirely  given  its  services  in  this  way  for 
years,  the  members  taking  this  as  an  outing 
time  from  regular  employment.  The  employes 
and  helpers  on  the  grounds  also  join  in  the  feel- 
ing of  gladness  and  fraternity,  young  people 
and  old,  school-teachers  and  hired  help  in  the 
farming  communities,  coming  for  miles  to  help 
in  getting  ready,  many  working  in  this  way  for 
season  tickets  for  themselves  and  families.  Sev- 
eral hundred  tickets  have  thus  been  secured  in 
one  season. 

Chautauqua  is  also  a  place  where,  by  coming 
in  touch  with  the  great  souls  of  earth,  many  are 
quickened  to  higher  life.  Chautauqua  is  reli- 
gion with  a  practical  emphasis,  and  liberty  with 
a  religious  emphasis.  Poor  people  and  rich  peo- 
ple will  mingle  at  Chautauqua  who  hardly  ever 
meet  in  church.  Country  men  and  towns'  peo- 
[  216  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

pie, —  people  from  various  sections  in  this  and 
other  lands  will  meet  on  a  common  footing.  In 
this  way  the  gospel  is  preached  to  thousands 
whom  the  churches  do  not  reach. 

This  whole  veffort  at  Lithia  Springs  has 
meant  for  me  "  more  and  better  work  for  the 
Kingdom  of  God  "  with  these  two  mottoes  flung 
in  the  breeze :  "  No  North,  no  South,  no  East, 
no  West,  but  one  grand  Union,  and  one  Flag." 
"  In  the  love  of  truth  and  in  the  spirit  of  Jesus 
Christ  we  unite  for  the  worship  of  God  and  the 
service  of  man." 

Booker  T.  Washington,  the  great  mental  and 
spiritual  emancipator  of  his  race,  on  the  occa- 
sion of  his  last  visit  to  us  (1903)  very  kindly 
said: 

"  I  am  glad  to  return  to  Lithia  Springs  for 
the  third  time.  I  am  always  glad  to  come  here. 
I  am  always  glad  to  shake  the  hand  of  your 
leader.  I  have  refused  invitations  to  at  least 
twenty-five  Chautauquas  this  season,  and  this  is 
the  third  and  last  one  that  I  shall  attend.  I 
come  to  Lithia  Springs  because  I  believe  in  what 
you  are  doing  and  in  the  way  you  are  do- 
ing it.  Because  you  are  strong  for  reality, 
simplicity,  getting  down  to  nature.  I  am  glad 
to  see  your  children  get  out  where  they  can 
wade  in  the  water,  hear  the  songs  of  the  birds 
[  217  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

and  live  near  nature.  I  was  born  in  a  log 
cabin,  and  I  haven't  felt  so  much  at  home  for 
fifteen  years  as  when  Brother  Douthit  put  me  in 
that  log  cabin." 

But  this  great  educator  and  benefactor  of  his 
race  and  all  races  did  not  tell  it  all.  He  came 
to  Lithia  to  help  us  when  he  could  have  received 
very  much  more  money  from  others. 

My  fellow-townsman  and  friend  for  over 
forty  years,  Senator  George  D.  Chafee,  at  Li- 
brary Chapel,  October  15,  1904,  gave  this  testi- 
mony: 

"  Here  under  the  shadow  of  these  trees,  in 
this  happy  little  valley,  around  these  bubbh'ng 
springs,  in  this  rude  structure, —  tabernacle 
they  call  it, —  where  nothing  has  been  done  for 
show,  during  the  last  dozen  years  have  been 
gathered  annually  the  very  best  and  brightest 
men  and  women  the  world  has  known,  and  their 
sweetest  and  brightest  thoughts  have  been  ex- 
pressed for  us  who  came  to  listen  and  learn. 

"  Here  was  absolute  freedom ;  here  was  rest 
for  the  weary  ;  here  was  hope  for  the  sorrowful ; 
here  were  pictures  of  a  bright  future;  here 
reminiscent  joys  of  the  past. 

"  I  don't  believe  there  ever  was  another  ten 
acres  in  the  world  where  so  many  great  and  good 
men  and  women  met  and  gave  such  free  expres- 
[  218  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

sion  to  so  many  great  and  good  thoughts  in  the 
same  length  of  time.  Religion,  History,  Ro- 
mance, Right  Living,  Higher  Aims,  Education, 
Music,  Good  Fellowship, —  everything,  except 
the  sordid  aim  to  accumulate  money,  here  has  its 
highest  and  best." 

Several  things  mark  this  Chautauqua  as 
unique,  notably:  (1)  It  is  probably  the  only 
Chautauqua  Assembly  begun  among  farmers 
and  in  a  rural  district,  miles  from  any  village  or 
city.  (2)  It  was  the  first  Chautauqua  in  the 
world,  so  far  as  I  can  learn,  to  invite  and  wel- 
come our  Roman  Catholic  friends  to  equal  priv- 
ileges on  its  platform  and  give  them  the  making 
of  the  program  for  a  day. —  Also  the  colored 
people  were  given  the  program.  (3)  It  is  the 
only  one,  that  I  know  of,  which  began  as  an 
anti-saloon  crusade  and  encampment,  but  also 
gives  each  political  party  a  day's  program. 
(4)  It  is  the  only  Chautauqua  conducted  under 
Unitarian  auspices,  and  it  should,  therefore,  be 
non-sectarian  in  spirit,  principle  and  purpose, 
according  to  the  traditions  of  the  Chautauqua 
idea.  (5)  It  was  the  first  to  give  a  day's  pro- 
gram to  the  Congress  of  Religion.  (6)  It  is 
the  only  Chautauqua  on  earth  having  a  wealthy 
[  219  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

opposition  only  five  miles  distant,  organized  for 
commercial  purposes  under  the  name  Chau- 
tauqua. 

Here  has  been  virtually  a  parliament  of  re- 
ligions; a  church  federation;  a  convention  for 
fair  play  to  all ;  a  people's  university ;  a  kinder- 
garten ;  a  school  for  good  citizenship  and  social 
purity;  a  school  for  Bible  study;  a  school  for 
domestic  science,  health  and  good  behavior;  a 
conference  of  men  and  women  to  cultivate  the 
art  of  making  happy  homes  and  of  making 
the  most  of  life,  the  best  of  each  other  and 
of  everything  the  good  God  gives  us. 

As  the  Lithia  Springs  Chautauqua  has  grown 
great  changes  have  been  wrought  in  the  un- 
fenced  woodland  around  Lithia.  A  small  part 
has  been  cleared  of  underbrush  and  set  in  blue- 
grass,  having  a  beautiful  park-like  effect.  A 
driveway  of  several  miles  over  the  park 
(laid  out  by  Prof.  J.  C.  Blair,  of  our  state 
University,  and  in  process  of  construction 
though  not  completed  for  lack  of  means),  gives 
a  varied  view  along  cultivated  fields,  through 
a  pleasant,  beautifully  shaded  meadow,  with 
high  bluffs  near  the  creek,  up  deep  glens,  and 
through  forest  so  dense  that  most  of  the  view 
is  of  the  blue  sky  above.  Roads  have  been 
[  220  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

worked,  fences  made,  washouts  filled  up,  bridges 
and  embankments  built.  Hundreds  of  stumps 
of  once  majestic  trees  must  be  rooted  up  with 
dynamite  so  as  to  put  the  park  of  forty  acres 
around  the  springs  in  trim  for  cottages,  log 
cabins  and  tents. 

Early  in  the  year  1902,  the  grounds  were 
planned,  nearly  two  hundred  building  lots 
platted,  and  arrangements  made  for  leasing 
lots  for  a  term  of  years,  with  restrictions 
giving  the  managers  of  the  Chautauqua  control 
as  to  proper  use  of  the  leased  ground. 
Prices  of  leases  were  fixed  at  from  ten  to  fifteen 
dollars  per  year,  and  several  cottages  were  built 
the  first  season.  There  are  now  some  twenty-five 
leased  lots,  with  cottages  varying  from  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  to  eight  hundred  dollars  or  more 
in  cost,  post-office  and  headquarters  building, 
grocery-store,  dining-hall,  kitchen  and  restau- 
rant, five-room  cottage  for  manager,  and  Kin- 
dergarten Hall,  making  a  total  investment  of 
some  seventy-five  hundred  dollars  made  by  indi- 
viduals. 

On  the  American  Unitarian  Association 
grounds  for  the  use  of  the  Chautauqua  are  four 
two-room  cottages,  nine  cabins  and  two  dormi- 
tories of  six  and  eight  rooms  each,  all  bringing 
[  221  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

an  income,  where  rented,  of  about  two  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars  at  each  annual  assembly.  Then 
there  is  the  rustic  Library  Chapel,  with  its  circu- 
lating library  of  nearly  one  thousand  volumes, 
and  of  great  value  as  a  place  for  holding  meet- 
ings and  classes.  This  was  finished  in  1904  by 
funds  placed  in  our  hands  by  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Henry  Pickering  of  Boston.  The  dedication 
services  were  held  Monday,  August  22,  1904, 
Rev.  Henry  H.  Barber  preaching  the  sermon, 
and  Rev.  Fred  V.  Hawley  making  an  address. 

The  recent  remodeling  of  the  tabernacle,  ice 
house,  dam  for  swimming  and  boating  pool, 
miscellaneous  buildings,  feed-yard  for  horses, 
etc.,  raises  the  total  value  of  improvements  on 
the  grounds,  private  and  belonging  to  the 
Association,  for  Chautauqua  and  missionary 
purposes,  to  over  twenty  thousand  dollars. 

This,  besides  the  necessary  work  of  clearing, 
road-making,  etc.,  which  has  resulted  in  no 
direct  income,  gives  some  idea  of  what  has  been 
accomplished  in  a  material  way,  most  of  it  in  the 
face  of  the  local  opposition  that  has  beset  us 
since  1901.  Besides  the  two  hundred  acres  in- 
cluded I  and  members  of  my  family  hold  ninety 
acres  more,  controlling  it  for  Chautauqua  pur- 
poses, thirty  acres  of  which,  bought  by  my  son 
[  222  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

and  his  wife,  near  the  springs,  had  before 
been  used  as  a  harbor  for  evil-doers.  All  this 
should  ultimately  belong  to  the  Chautauqua 
estate  or  be  controlled  in  its  interest. 

Here  I  am  at  the  end  of  my  story.  It  has 
taken  more  of  work  and  time  than  I  supposed. 
Spring  is  here.  I  have  been  in  Shelbyville  all 
winter  preaching  on  Sunday,  and  preparing 
for  Chautauqua  other  days.  I  long  for  the 
bright  days  to  come  when  I  can  spend  more 
time  amid  the  healthful  influences  of  the 
springs.  I  preach  regularly  in  Shelbyville  ' 
during  the  winter  season,  and  for  the  summer 
I  hold  services  regularly  in  Library  Chapel. 

My  son  George  lives  near  the  springs  and 
looks  after  the  wants  of  the  cottagers  and  other 
interests.  He  is  postmaster  of  Lithia,  which  is 
a  regular  U.  S.  post-office  for  the  summer 
season,  and  my  grandson  and  namesake,  Jas- 
per, is  chief  clerk.  My  son  and  family  also 
help  with  Our  Best  Words,  the  monthly  wings 
of  the  mission  since  1880.  Crowds  of  cot- 
tagers and  visitors,  camping  and  picnic  par- 
ties, etc.,  are  coming  and  going  all  summer, 
and  often  in  winter.  We  still  hold  Fourth 
of  July  celebrations ;  and  the  local  Methodist 
churches  last  year  inaugurated  an  annual  basket 
[  223  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

meeting,  to  be  held  in  June,  which  promises  to 
be  very  largely  attended.  All  these  services, 
with  the  Assembly  in  August,  keep  the  vacation 
filled  with  interesting  work. 

I  have  dwelt  at  such  length  upon  the  work  at 
Lithia  Springs,  because,  as  God  gives  me  to  see 
it,  this  is  the  most  important  visible  result  of  this 
mission,  and  the  nearest  realization  of  my  prayer 
through  a  half  century,  for  good  fellowship 
and  co-operation  among  all  people  for  right- 
eousness, temperance,  peace  and  good-will  to 
men. 

When,  many  years  ago,  Jenkin  Lloyd  Jones 
was  Secretary  of  the  Western  Unitarian  Con- 
ference, he  once  visited  this  mission  in  the 
muddy  season.  In  his  report  of  the  visit  he  said 
that  the  American  Unitarian  Association  had 
aimed  an  arrow  at  the  state  capitol  and  it  had 
glanced  off  and  stuck  in  the  mud  down  in 
"  Egypt."  I  do  not  know  exactly  what  Brother 
Jones  meant  by  that  remark,  but  it  is  sugges- 
tive. It  has  been  claimed  by  some  that  Uni- 
tarian Christianity  is  not  so  much  for  the 
"  great  plain  people," —  to  use  Lincoln's  favor- 
ite phrase, —  as  for  the  highly  cultured,  and 
that  missionary  efforts  should  therefore  be  ex- 
[  224  ] 


JASPER  DOUTHIT'S  STORY 

erted  chiefly  among  the  "  influential,  intellectual 
and  scholarly,"  and  at  college  towns  and  uni- 
versities. But  the  gospel  I  have  felt  called 
to  preach  for  nearly  fifty  years  is  sent  of  God 
for  all  sorts,  classes  and  conditions  of  people, 
especially  the  more  needy  and  unfortunate  of  our 
Father's  children.  "  In  my  early  missionary 
work,"  said  good  Bishop  Thoburn,  "  I  made  the 
mistake  of  fancying  that  if  I  could  get  hold  of 
the  influential  part  of  the  community,  I  could 
get  hold  of  the  masses.  I  found  that  this  fancy 
was  contrary  to  reason  and  history.  Chris- 
tianity was  founded  by  beginning  at  the  bot- 
tom" I  did  not  realize  this  fact  at  the  begin- 
ning of  my  ministry,  but  I  did  feel  that  I  must 
begin  where  I  was  born  and  work  among  the 
people  with  whom  I  was  brought  up. 

Here  I  have  labored  over  forty-five  years, 
mostly  under  the  auspices  of  the  American  Uni- 
tarian Association,  whose  avowed  object  is  "  to 
diffuse  the  knowledge  and  promote  the  interests 
of  pure  Christianity."  This  has,  indeed,  been 
my  desire  and  purpose  since  the  time  I  began 
to  worship  and  work  with  the  First  Methodist 
Church,  Shelby ville,  Illinois,  in  1854,  until  now. 

I  have  tried  in  these  pages  to  give  a  simple, 
plain  story  of  my  life-experience,  with  the 
earnest  prayer  that  it  may  help  others  to  do 
more  and  better  work  than  I  have  done  for  the 
Kingdom  of  God  on  earth. 
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